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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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30 November, 2010

Britain's slap-on-the-wrist justice system: 37,000 violent thugs a year escaping with just a caution

Magistrates yesterday revealed that 37,000 violent thugs got away with a caution rather than jail in a single year under Britain’s ‘incoherent’ justice system.

John Thornhill, chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, said the yobs could have been hauled before the courts to be properly punished but instead received just a slap on the wrist. In a withering attack on sentencing policy, he said victims were being cheated out of ‘opportunity to see justice being done’, as well as compensation.

The wrong cases were ending up before the courts, he told the association’s annual general meeting. Mr Thornhill contrasted the amount of court time spent addressing minor offences compared with violent crimes. He said: ‘We have an incoherent justice system – a system in which a court is asked to adjourn two separate charges of fare evasion of £1.30 – a matter that could have been dealt with outside of court.

‘A system in which minor drunk and disorderly offences cannot be heard in absence as the streamlined process does not allow the serving of the evidence against the offender – more adjournments and unnecessary expense.

‘Yet set against these examples, in one year 37,000 offenders received a simple caution for an offence that in court would have attracted at least a community order if not custody – assault occasioning actual bodily harm. 'A caution which denies the victim the opportunity to see justice being done and receive compensation for the hurt and injuries caused.’

Under Labour, the number of cautions rocketed, as police and prosecutors were put under pressure to settle cases outside court in order to meet Whitehall targets. The surge sparked fears that the criminal justice system had gone ‘soft’.

Now the Coalition plans to slash the prison population by 3,000 by 2014, meaning tens of thousands of convicts receiving community orders instead of jail terms.

Yesterday, in his own speech to the conference, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke insisted he was not about to tear up short sentences or open prison doors to release violent criminals. ‘If you are alarmed by the debate about that... it has not actually ever featured as part of our proposals,’ he said. ‘The same with letting out the burglars, the rapists, the murderers, people being allowed to stab people and get a community sentence – just forget that.

‘I’ve never met a sane person who agrees with any of those proposals and I regard myself as a comparatively sane man, so none of them are likely to come forward.’ But he added: ‘There will be extremely serious changes. 'The biggest thing we’re addressing in the current system, where we have an enormous prison population, is the rate of reoffending.’

The sentencing Green Paper was still ‘a few weeks’ away, Mr Clarke added. It has been hit by rows between departments over concerns about being seen as ‘soft’ on crime.

Last month, it was revealed that almost 2,700 offenders were handed a community sentence in 2008 despite being found guilty of a crime more than 50 times before. Incredibly, 315 convicts received a non-custodial sentence after 100 or more previous convictions for indictable offences.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: ‘We need a more intelligent approach to sentencing that targets the root causes of crime and reoffending, so making our communities safer and better places to live.

‘There is no question that we must protect the public from the most dangerous criminals in our society. ‘However, we must also ensure the courts have the power to make the right response to stop people committing crime.’

SOURCE





Confessions of a young anti-feminist

By Josephine Asher, writing from Australia

Is the pursuit for gender equality sucking life out of relationships? Instead of harnessing the different qualities of men and women to energise us, we are striving to make men and women equal.

More women are joining the battle for the CEO’s chair and pursuing dominance in their homes and communities. But in the process they’re becoming more like men. And men are becoming… well, less like men.

Renowned Australian neurosurgeon Charlie Teo believes men and women have different roles “set not only by society but set by physiology”. “The current trend is for dads to be more hands on. But for all we know it may be proven in a hundred years time that that may be a negative thing for the upbringing of children,” he said recently on Seven’s Sunday Night program.

“They’re there to be protective. A man has to have a good job; he has to do well at school so he can get a good job and support his family. A woman has to be loving and caring,” he said.

As a 29-year-old single woman, many of my peers don’t appreciate my traditionalist views. I’d rather dodge a flying pair of high heels thrown at me in anger than pin a man under a pair of mine.

Feminism has achieved victories for women, but could it be at the expense of femininity, chivalry and attributes of the opposite sex that instinctively attract us to each other?

In his book The Way of the Superior Man, David Deida describes attraction between the masculine and the feminine as “sexual polarity”, referring to varying degrees of strength and vulnerability.

“This force of attraction is the dynamism that often disappears in modern relationships. If you want real passion, you need a ravisher and a ravishee. Otherwise you just have two buddies who decide to rub genitals in bed,” he writes.

Earlier this month, TopGear presenter James May branded the new generation of men as “useless morons” who struggle to master the basic skills once defined as masculine roles. “The decline of practical skills, some of them very day-to-day, among a generation of British men is very worrying. They can’t put up a shelf, wire a plug, countersink a screw…” he said.

For thousands of years men were providers and protectors and women nurturers. Evolution provided each with the physical and emotional assets to do these jobs well.

Well into the last century the husband provided his family with a home and food and this sole responsibility gave him a sense of power and purpose. And women didn’t feel pressure to justify their existence with a career. They were proud home makers and mothers.

Until feminism. Now, two thirds of Australian families with dependent children have two incomes. Women are more independent, and consequently they are less dependent on men.

However, mothers now feel more pressure to stay in the workforce either to financially keep up with the surge in double income families or to avoid the negative stigma of being a housewife.

Is it becoming unacceptable in our society for women to rely on men and take pride in abilities defined as gender roles?

Women are also suppressing traditional feminine characteristics like elegance and fragility to take on high power careers and step into male dominated roles.

The Annual Child Care and Workforce Participation Survey found 33 per cent of women who returned to work did so for independence, and 27 per cent for career progression. However, a British survey of 2000 men revealed one-third of men would prefer to be the sole breadwinning traditional father while another quarter would like to be the main breadwinner with their spouse working only part-time.

Instead, men are sporting aprons, doing their own ironing and pushing trolleys down supermarket aisles – roles that don’t exactly exude manliness.

The survey also found more than half of respondents thought 21st century society was turning men into “waxed and coiffed metrosexuals”, who had to live according to women’s rules.

How does that impact a man’s morale? My friend Dave told me his wife speaks to him in the same tone as she speaks to their children – and the dog. “Kids, turn off the TV, Buster outside, Dave, the dishes aren’t going to clean themselves.” Dave feels like he’s surrendered his balls.

When a man is stripped of his sense of purpose, it’s more difficult to satisfy that instinctive hunger for power and purpose. Could this be part of the reason why one in eight Australian men experiences severe depression in their lifetime?

Deida describes it as a “weakened impotent existence”. “Without a conscious life purpose, a man is totally lost, drifting, adapting to events rather than creating events,” he said. “The mission is the priority of the masculine, whereas the search for love is the priority of the feminine.”

It seems marriage is becoming less about being dependent on each other and more about living independent lives. But is it making couples happier? Now, 40 percent of Australian marriages are predicted to end in divorce.

The Relationships Australia Relationships Indicators Survey 2008 revealed stress, work pressures and lack of time to spend with their partner were the top three factors that negatively impacted upon partner relationships.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2007), 67 per cent of mothers felt pressed for time in families where both parents were working, compared with just 12 per cent in families where one parent was employed.

I don’t think that women should surrender their careers all together. But if we allow men to reclaim some power, we women could do more to embrace our femininity. Would we be happier if more of us accept that men and women are not equal?

SOURCE




The still lethal obsession

No matter how many prizes Prof. Robert Wistrich’s massive tome A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad garners, the book still deserves more attention than it has received. Indeed no amount of attention would be sufficient.

Its packed 938 pages of text reflect neither authorial grandiosity nor editorial lassitude. The copious detail amassed is required so that Wistrich’s central arguments not be dismissed as cherry-picked quotes used to exaggerate the seriousness of the phenomena under discussion. Random House, a commercial publisher, did not request him to cut a single sentence.

A Lethal Obsession stands as a refutation of three widespread misconceptions fostered in the West, partly out of ignorance and partly out of fear. The first is that radical Islam is a relatively minor phenomenon in the Muslim world. On his recent visit to India, US President Barack Obama provided a good example of Western ignorance or dissembling. Asked about jihad, he began his reply by insisting that jihad has several meanings in Islamic thought. Wrong. In contemporary Muslim discourse, jihad invariably refers to conquest to establish the domain of Islam.

The president went on to state, “Islam is one of the world’s great religions, which has been distorted in the hands of a few extremists.” As Wistrich makes clear, however, Islamo-fascism, with its death cult and cosmology of civilizational struggle between the forces of righteousness and demonic evil (with the Jews or Israel always at the center), holds millions, from alienated Muslim youth in Europe, across the 57 Muslim states, in thrall.

Nazi race ideology found fertile soil in the Middle East. Hitler was a hero to the founder of Syrian and Iraqi Ba’athism, Michel Aflaq. Haj Amin al-Husseini, the founding father of Palestinian nationalism, recruited Bosnian Muslims for Hitler’s extermination of Balkan Jewry. In wartime broadcasts from Berlin, he extolled Hitler for having fully grasped the nature of the “Jewish peril” and for “having resolved to find a final solution to liberate the world from this danger.” He synthesized Nazism with the teachings of “the prophet” on the perfidy of the Jews in all times and all places – “bloodsuckers of the nations and corrupters of morality, incapable of loyalty or genuine assimilation.”

Sayyid Qutb, theorist of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas and al-Qaida are but two offshoots, wrote in his Our Struggle with the Jews (an echo of Mein Kampf) of “the liberating struggle of jihad” that can never cease, and threatened any Muslim regime that should contemplate any form of accommodation with Israel. (He was executed by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.) For him, as for so many Muslim thinkers after him, the very existence of the State of Israel represented the measure of the Muslim world’s degradation and moral bankruptcy.

Virulent anti-Semitism, Wistrich quotes the dean of Middle East scholars Bernard Lewis, “is an essential part of Arab intellectual life.” The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has been reprinted in countless editions in almost every Muslim country. It climbed to No. 2 on the Turkish best-seller lists in 2005, at a time when Turkey was still a strategic ally of Israel. Egypt, a nation nominally at peace with Israel, recently broadcast a 24-part TV dramatization of The Protocols.

Conspiracy theories about Jews are readily believed throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Jews are the all-purpose explanation for the Islamic world’s weakness and failure vis-à-vis the West, and a metaphor for all the disorienting aspects of modernity and globalization. Iranian-sponsored Holocaust denial is but the most repugnant of those conspiracy theories. In Pakistan, like Iran a Muslim nation with no border or national dispute with Israel, two-thirds of the population did not discredit out of hand the claim that Jews were behind 9/11 and were told in advance not to show up for work that day.

The Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 – a revolution without borders, according to its leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – raised the pride and hopes of downtrodden Muslims around the globe. And with the Soviet expulsion from Afghanistan, the fall of the godless Soviet Union and most recently the emergence of a nuclear Iran, a narrative of Islam ascendant and ready to confront the corrupt, Jew-controlled West has inflamed millions of Muslims around the globe. Determination to extirpate the cancer of Israel is the key element allowing Shi’ite Iran to gather the Sunni Muslim street to its banner. Not surprisingly, a 1999 poll by the American University of Beirut of the Arab world found: 87 percent supported Islamic terror attacks on Israel, 70% opposed peace with Israel and 54% advocated a war of annihilation of Israel.

More HERE





Attack on age-old Jewish customs in New Zealand defeated

New Zealand? Jews are fair game everyewhere, it seems. When will the world ever learn?

A farming company part-owned by a Cabinet minister was able to give him a briefing about how the Government could protect its lucrative trade with Muslim countries by banning Jewish slaughtering. Agriculture Minister David Carter supported the recommended law change but had to back down days before he was to be taken to court to justify it.

It is the second time this year Crown lawyers have had to leap to the defence of one of Parliament's wealthiest MPs - and this time in a case in which he was forced to admit getting basic facts wrong.

Carter was being sued by the Auckland Hebrew Congregation for changing the law in May to make traditional Jewish slaughter of animals illegal. The case was set to begin in the High Court at Wellington tomorrow - until an embarrassing backdown by Carter who on Friday overturned the ban he asked Cabinet to support.

The practice of shechita on poultry was declared no longer illegal while the Government also agreed to negotiate the ban on sheep. New Zealand Jews will still have to import beef from Australia, where shechita is allowed.

Documents obtained by the Herald on Sunday appear to show Carter broke the rules governing his portfolio by considering trade implications when making the original decision.

An allegation of conflict of interest has been made because of that - he holds shares in a company which exports meat and met with senior managers who wanted a ban on shechita to protect their interests.

Carter was pulled back into line after lawyers told him he was allowed to consider only animal welfare issues. He had been advised trade with Muslim countries might suffer if it emerged kosher meat was allowed to be produced here while restrictions were placed on halal slaughter.

New Zealand requires halal meat be stunned before slaughter while kosher meat - which is killed only for a small domestic market - does not have the same restriction....

Crown Law Office spokeswoman Jan Fulstow was unable to provide details of the cost of defending Carter over the shechita ban before press time.

It emerged in April that taxpayers paid $115,000 towards Carter's legal bills after a defamation scrap with former NZ First leader Winston Peters.

Fulstow contacted the Herald on Sunday on Friday to warn against printing material relating to the court case. Fulstow said she was calling to warn about a confidentiality order at the urging of Carter's lawyer.

The call came within minutes of questions from the Herald on Sunday to Carter's ministerial office over Jewish community claims of a conflict of interest.

But much of the information used by the Herald on Sunday came through the Official Information Act, sought by Auckland's Jonathan Shenken, who became concerned his religious right to kosher meat would be threatened.

Shenken began and continued a decade-long research initiative which turned up concerns by MAF over the possible trade impacts of shechita - and eventually Carter's meeting with Silver Fern Farms Ltd. Other information included a High Court judgment released on Friday.

In the judgment, from Justice Alan Mackenzie, it was revealed that Carter had banned shechita slaughter of poultry, sheep and cows with the belief all could be imported from Australia.

But Carter's lack of knowledge was exposed in the judgment. Judge Mackenzie reported that Carter had no idea it was not possible to import kosher chicken meat and that "his understanding was wrong".

His evidence also revealed he had no idea how much it could cost to import kosher meat - in the case of lamb, more than $120 a kilogram.

It was the judgment that also revealed Carter's office had repeatedly referred to shechita and trade after he had been told by lawyers he was not to do so.

More HERE

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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 or 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 November, 2010

Proposal to deport "black sheep" from Switzerland



The posters show white sheep kicking black sheep off the Swiss flag. They were widely condemned as racist when the Swiss People’s Party launched them three years ago. Now, as the nationalist party’s demand to automatically deport foreigners convicted of serious crimes goes before a Sunday referendum, the posters have been cropping up again in stations and squares.

Polls show the message is getting through. A survey published last week by polling group gfs.bern showed 54 percent of voters approved the measure, which also proposes to kick out foreigners found guilty of benefit fraud. In the poll of 771 voters conducted Nov. 8-13, 43 percent opposed the plan and 3 percent were undecided.

Under Switzerland’s unique political system, any group wanting to change the law can collect 100,000 signatures to force a referendum. Last year the country drew international condemnation after voters defied a government recommendation and approved a law to ban the construction of minarets.

Critics of the deportation proposal include legal experts, who say the law could clash with international treaties that Switzerland has signed up to.

“For the same crime some people will suffer one punishment, other people suffer two punishments,” said Marcelo Kohen, a professor of international law at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

Kohen said foreigners who have lived all their life in Switzerland, married Swiss citizens and had children, would be unusually hard hit by expulsion. Likewise, under international law refugees cannot be sent back to their country of origin if they face persecution there.

“You have to analyze the concrete situation, and this is the main problem with the initiative,” Kohen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. Other countries that have deportation laws allow judges to exercise discretion in deportation cases.

The federal government has put forward an alternative proposal that would require each deportation case to be individually examined by a judge. Voters will be able to choose between the two or reject both.

Georg Kreis, the president of the Federal Commission against Racism, said automatic expulsion, if approved, would lead to discrimination, but denied that the campaign indicated there was greater xenophobia in Switzerland than in neighboring countries.

“Direct democracy makes prejudice against minorities more visible,” he told the AP by e-mail.

The black sheep posters were heavily criticized by anti-racism campaigners when they first appeared in 2007, for their not-so-subtle depiction of blacks as criminals. The U.N.’s racism expert at the time, Doudou Diene, noted that previous poster campaigns by the party had drawn on similarly stereotypical images to paint foreigners as felons and benefit cheats.

A senior People’s Party official denied the black sheep posters were racist.

“In all four languages spoken in Switzerland, everybody understands when you‘re talking about black sheep you’re talking about people who don’t stick to the rules,” Silvia Baer, who is deputy general secretary of the party, told the AP. “It’s a figure of speech, so there is no problem with the posters.”

Alexander Segert, head of the Swiss advertising agency that devised the campaign, said it was one of his company’s most successful ever.

“It works incredibly well because everybody who sees it immediately understands it,” said Segert. “It’s not about skin color.”

SOURCE. Note: On preliminary figures, the referendum has succeeded







Race row erupts over The Hobbit after Pakistani rejected as too dark for casting

PETER Jackson's troubled Hobbit project has become embroiled in a race row after a would-be extra was told she was too dark to play one of the pint-sized Tolkien creatures, reports said. Briton Naz Humphreys, who has Pakistani heritage, attended a casting session in the New Zealand city of Hamilton last week, queueing for three hours only to be told her skin tone was not suitable, the Waikato Times reported.

"It's 2010 and I still can't believe I'm being discriminated against because I have brown skin," Humphreys told the newspaper. "The casting manager basically said they weren't having anybody who wasn't pale-skinned."

The newspaper said video footage showed the casting manager telling people at the audition: "We are looking for light-skinned people. I'm not trying to be - whatever. It's just the brief. You've got to look like a hobbit."

Humphreys said she was a huge fan of Jackson's Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy and, with a height of 1.5 metres, had hoped for a bit part in The Hobbit, a two-part prequel to the original movies. "I would love to be an extra," she said. "But it just seemed like a shame because obviously hobbits are not brown or black or any other colour. "They all look kind of homogenised beige and all derived from the Caucasian gene pool."

Humphreys has started a Facebook group called Hire hobbits of all colours! Say no to hobbit racism!

A spokesman for Jackson told the newspaper that the director was unaware of the casting restriction and described it as "an incredibly unfortunate error". "It is not something the producers or the director of The Hobbit were aware of," he said. "They would never issue instructions of this kind to the casting crew. All people meeting the age and height requirements are welcome to audition."

The production has been dogged by problems, including a union dispute that saw studios threaten to move it from New Zealand, which was settled last month when the government offered generous tax breaks and changed industrial laws.

Previously, The Hobbit had been stalled for years by wrangling over distribution rights, reported budget blowouts and financial woes at the MGM studio, prompting director Guillermo del Toro to quit earlier this year.

It is scheduled to begin filming in 3D next February with Jackson back in the director's chair and Martin Freeman from The Office starring in the lead role of Bilbo Baggins.

SOURCE

A forced backdown. I think





A real New Yorker



It obviously peeved officials that she was more popular than the Arab lady but expecting a Muslim to be popular in NYC was a big ask. You can censor what people are allowed to hear but you can't censor their thoughts

MISS New York Davina Reeves didn't want to be just another face in the crowd at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade -- she wanted to be the star. So the 27-year-old beauty queen, ever the New Yorker, muscled her way, uninvited, onto the float of Miss USA Rima Fakih, of Michigan, the New York Post reported.

Reeves, who gives up her tiara Sunday night when a new Miss New York is crowned in Albany, admitted she wanted one last moment in the spotlight. "It's the biggest parade in the world, and my sister and I were like, 'Hey, this is my last weekend as Miss New York -- let's go out with a bang,'" the mischievous miss said.

On Thursday morning, she donned her official sash and crown and hit the parade route with her sister, Ashley. Looking the part of Miss Congeniality, she signed autographs and flashed a winning smile while her sister asked a parade official which float Miss New York was supposed to ride. A man with a clipboard pointed them to Float No. 9, where Miss USA was ruling the roost atop the "Pep Rally" float. "There was no lying, because that's bad karma," Reeves said.

"At first, it was just fantastic!" said Reeves, who swanned onto the float as if she belonged there. She said Fakih was "surprised but happy" to see her. But with the hometown crowd cheering the local beauty a bit too loudly, Reeves wore out her welcome with Fakih's handlers. "Someone asked me to take off my crown, because Miss USA wasn't wearing her crown," said Reeves, who willingly stuffed her tiara into a backpack.

But she didn't pack away her chutzpah. Still hamming it up, she was kicked to the back of the float five blocks later. "They told me I needed to move, so I just nonchalantly moved to the back, like it was no big deal," Reeves recalled.

By the time the float hit 72nd Street, parade officials had lost their patience. "This woman from Macy's with headphones on was talking on her walkie-talkie and running next to the float and told me I needed to get off the float completely," Reeves said.

Reeves made sure police escorted her away, to make it look as if she were rushing to a photo-op.

The beauty queen, said she has no regrets. "It was the most daredevil thing I ever did," she said. "We had a blast. This title is about growing, about being courageous and fearless ... This was fun, and that's what life's about."

SOURCE




Gender-bending athletics

Brent Bozell

A New frontier on the battleground of men's and women's athletics is upon us: When is a female jock really female, and a male really a guy?

Kye Allums, a shooting guard on the George Washington University women's basketball team, has decided that she is a he. She is believed to be the first Division I college basketball player to go public about being a "transgender" person. The obvious question is whether Allums would still be able to compete. You can't have men playing in a women's basketball program, and it's more than awkward to have a man showering with the women in the locker room.

Spurred by a track-and-field controversy four years ago, NCAA rules prohibit sexual reassignment surgery or hormone treatments for athletes to retain their eligibility. Allums, a junior, has pledged to forego those steps while she retains her eligibility for college basketball.

But in the meantime, in the midst of a culture that doesn't dare utter a discouraging word about gender denial and genital self-mutilation, Allums is listed on the GWU Web site as a male member of the women's basketball team. All the press reports swoon about how "he" -- who remains a woman in every biological way -- is handling this so bravely as a role model: "I'm trying to be an example for other people to not be afraid of who they are."

Allums boasts, "My teammates have embraced me as the big brother of the team." Transgender activists insist that everyone accept their favored pronouns, despite their obvious inaccuracy. Our sports media can't seem to locate anyone in their good-for-you coverage that would even whisper that this is . . . weird. That's apparently hate speech.

So "he" plays in a girls' league, and we should all accept that.
This isn't just a school issue. The Ladies Professional Golf Association is being sued by a golfer named Lana Lawless, who says her civil rights are being violated. She says she had a 1 handicap as a man, but now as a woman, she wants to join the LPGA tour even though their bylaws state that you have to be "born a female." But California being California, the state now prohibits discrimination against transgender athletes.

Lawless went on KGO-TV in San Francisco with "her" deep, froggy voice, insisting, "I don't have an advantage anymore. All the testosterone has basically been removed from my body."

"She" is a 57-year-old former police officer who looks like a middle linebacker and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2005. She is also suing the Long Drivers Association, which changed their rules after Lawless drove a golf ball 254 yards -- as a "woman."

Despite the physical evidence, LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan was already backtracking under KGO's pressure. "I think, to be honest with you, [as] I think through this, I'm going to have to educate myself as well in terms of what qualifies as being female. So you know, maybe this lawsuit will make us look at it as well." What a coward.

The gender-bending activists on this issue want their preferred standards of "non-discrimination" imposed nationally, all at once, in high schools and colleges, and in professional sports, to teach allegedly ignorant Americans to respect "gender identity and expression."

If it takes such "courage" for Kye Allums to become honored as a public example, why does it seem that no one has the courage (or fairness in the media) to oppose or even question this war on reality?

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 or 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.

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



28 November, 2010

Muslim "refugee" tries to bomb Oregon Christmas tree lighting



A Somali-born teenager was arrested in an undercover operation on charges that he tried to detonate a van that he thought was filled with explosives at a Portland, Oregon, Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, obtained what he believed to be the bomb from undercover FBI employees, according to court papers filed with his arrest yesterday. The public was never in danger, a Justice Department statement said.

"I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured," Mohamud allegedly told undercover FBI agents, according to an affidavit filed in support of the arrest. At another point, he allegedly said, "It’s gonna be a fireworks show" and "a spectacular show."

Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen and resident of Corvallis, Oregon, told undercover FBI agents that he had been thinking of committing violent jihad since he was 15 years old, and that he had written for an online publication supporting such actions, according to the affidavit.

Counterterrorism officials, citing a series of cases in recent years, say they are increasingly concerned about American citizens planning terror attacks in the U.S. because those plots are difficult to detect and prevent.

Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, was convicted of a May 1 attempt to detonate a car bomb in New York’s Times Square.

Mohamud is charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance in federal court in Portland on Nov. 29.

In August 2009, Mohamud was in contact by e-mail with an associate outside the U.S. who authorities suspect of being involved in terrorism, according to the Justice Department. They allegedly discussed the possibility of his traveling to Pakistan to "engage in violent jihad," the Justice Department statement said.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in June contacted Mohamud under the guise of being affiliated with the associate, according to the arrest affidavit. He told them he wanted to stage an explosion and needed help, according to the Justice Department. He allegedly told an undercover agent that he wanted to attack a "huge mass" of people "in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays." He said he wanted to carry out the attack in Oregon because "nobody ever thinks about it."

Earlier this month, Mohamud and the undercover FBI agents went to a remote location in Lincoln County, Oregon and detonated a bomb concealed in a backpack as a trial run, according to the affidavit. Mohamud mailed bomb components to undercover FBI agents, who he thought were assembling the device, according to the affidavit.

Mohamud told the FBI agents that he thought it was "awesome" when people had to jump from the World Trade Center in the Sept. 11 attacks, and said he wanted to see body parts and blood after setting off his bomb, according to the affidavit.

Before the planned bombing at Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square, Mohamud put on a white robe and a white and red headdress, along with a camouflage jacket and read a written statement in front of a video camera, the affidavit said. "For as long as you threaten our security, your people will not remain safe," he said, according to the affidavit.

Yesterday, Mohamud and an undercover agent allegedly drove a white van near the courthouse. The fake bomb, constructed by FBI technicians, included six 55-gallon drums containing inert materials and diesel fuel, according to the affidavit.

Mohamud tried to detonate the bomb using a cell phone, according to the affidavit. He was taken into custody soon after, about 5.40p.m. Portland time, about 10 minutes after the tree lighting was scheduled to begin. As he was being transported, he allegedly yelled "Allahu Akhbar," or "God is great" in Arabic, and began kicking the FBI agents.

Mohamud took classes at Oregon State University in Corvallis starting in late 2009 and he withdrew last month, said Todd Simmons, a university spokesman. Mohamud faces life in prison if convicted.

"The threat was very real," said Arthur Balizan, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon, in the Justice Department statement. "Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale."

SOURCE






Call for reform of British "human rights" law

David Cameron is under pressure to deliver on a promise to reform the Human Rights Act following the disclosure that the foreign-born murderer of Philip Lawrence has been arrested on suspicion of another violent attack.

Frances Lawrence, the headmaster’s widow, said the legislation needed to be “revised”. Conservative MPs urged the Prime Minister to act on his previous pledges to scrap the current legislation.

The Daily Telegraph disclosed on Wednesday that Learco Chindamo had been arrested four months after his release for the 1995 murder of Mr Lawrence outside a west London school.

The Government had been prevented from deporting Chindamo to Italy, where he lived as a child, because of the Human Rights Act. He was freed in July and allowed to live in Britain.

Yesterday Mrs Lawrence told The Daily Telegraph: “I think the Human Rights Act needs revision. It omits the notion of responsibility, without which we are less than human. I don’t think this is a mere philosophical point.”

The legislation was introduced by the Labour government in 1998, but has been criticised for providing more protection for criminals and terrorists than law-abiding citizens. Over the past few years, Mr Cameron repeatedly called for the legislation to be reformed, describing it as “a glaring example of what is going wrong in our country”. The Conservatives drew up plans for a Bill of Rights to replace it. The change would have been introduced before the end of the year had the Tories won a majority. Under the Coalition, the reform has been delayed. Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister and a previous supporter of the Act, has been charged with helping to lead a commission reviewing the legislation.

The commission will not start work until 2012 at the earliest, raising fears that the Act will not be overhauled.

The decision to hand control of the issue to Mr Clegg has irritated some ministers, who are braced for the issue not to be resolved before the next election.

One Conservative Cabinet minister said: “This is another totemic issue like inheritance tax which has been thrown overboard.

“It is an issue which needs to be resolved but Cameron has virtually given up on it. It now looks like reforming the Act properly will be for the next manifesto.

“This was all ready to go; it would have been law next year if we had won the election. But that’s life.”

Last night, Conservative MPs urged Mr Cameron to push ahead with his previous pledge to reform the Act.

Priti Patel, MP for Witham, said: “The public will be appalled to see that human rights laws continue to prevent us from sending dangerous foreign criminals back to their own countries. Instead of the public being protected they are being left to commit more crimes in Britain. There are serious issues with the way human rights legislation operates which has left people feeling that the rights of criminals are being put above those of the law-abiding majority.”

Dominic Raab, MP for Esher & Walton, who helped to draw up the plans for a Bill of Rights, said: “Britain’s inability to deport criminals because it disrupts their family ties is a direct result of the Human Rights Act, not the European Convention [on Human Rights]. This case highlights the difference a Bill of Rights can make, and why it should be a priority. It must not be kicked into the long grass.”

Rehman Chishti, a barrister and Conservative MP for Gilliam and Rainham, said: “Learco Chindamo should have been extradited a long time ago when he was first sentenced. People talk about his human right to a family life but what about the human rights of the public who have a right to be protected from him?”

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “There is a Coalition agreement on this and it sets out very clearly what we are going to do on the European Convention on Human Rights. There is an awful lot of work going on between now and then.

“There are many other things going through the House of Commons and many other bits of policy, and significant reforms under way in lots of areas and we are getting on with those.”

SOURCE





Segregation’s back with “Sisters’ Splash.”

Are you a Muslim woman? Don’t want to share the pool with men? Then welcome to George Washington University’s “Sisters’ Splash, the ladies-only swim hour.

“The school’s Lerner Health and Wellness Center closed the pool to men and covered the glass door with a dark tarp, giving female Muslim students the chance to swim at their leisure, while honoring the basic tenets of their religion.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State are of course outraged, oh wait a minute, they aren’t: “Because George Washington is a private university, there should be no constitutional issues with the swim hour, Ayesha N. Khan, legal director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.”

Interesting, yet when Bob Jones University wanted to discriminate against black students they were told they would lose their tax-exempt status. Oh well, I guess some people are better than others.

“Aliya Karim, social chair of the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) women’s group, tells the student newspaper the organization made the effort to coordinate the swimming hour so fellow Muslims would feel comfortable in the pool. “Personally, I would only want to go when just girls are there,” Karim, who is also a Hatchet photographer, tells the newspaper.”

Well, we wouldn’t want Muslims to be uncomfortable, would we? I mean, I remember being a fat kid and being forced to take swimming lessons as part of the mandatory physical education program at my high school, I remember the kinds making fun of me, too bad I wasn’t a Muslim, I would have loved “fat hour” at the pool.

“Rahiba Noor, a junior who serves as the community service chair of the MSA, tells the newspaper that, prior to attending GW, swimming laps at a private pool was an important part of her health regimen. At school, however, Noor tells the student newspaper she’s resigned herself to staying away from the water and using a treadmill.

“Religious values always define us,” Noor tells the newspaper. “Although I wouldn’t really mind, it would be satisfying to me religiously to swim only with girls.”

Plenty of people have religious values, like Orthodox Jews, they don’t eat pork. So what do they do? They bring their own lunch, pick something else from the menu, go to a kosher restaurant or get their education at Brandeis, Yeshiba University or Baruch College. So if we’re not accommodating Orthodox Jews, why the hell do it with Muslim women?

So here’s my compromise as a believer in freedom, now listen up Muslims because this is for you: Instead of donating so much money to Hezbollah why don’t you raise funds for a private Muslim country club? Then you can build your own damn pool, hell, build two pools, and practice all the segregation you want. Until then, stop demanding special treatment from a private school that gets taxpayer dollars!

SOURCE

We learn here that the pool was constructed with money donated by a Jewish philanthropist. Does he approve? If not, change could be in the air






Netanyahu: Palestinian distortion of historical facts hurts Mideast peace drive

Is there anything else left for the Palis to lie about?

A Palestinian Authority report claiming the Western Wall was not a Jewish holy site and was, in fact, sacred to Muslims poses a serious question as to the Palestinian's desire to reach a peace deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

The prime minister's rebuke came in the wake of a report released by a senior PA official on Wednesday which said the Western Wall had no religious significance to Jews and is in fact, holy Muslim property.

Al-Mutawakil Taha, deputy minister of information in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank, told The Associated Press that his five-page study published on a Palestinian government website reflected the official Palestinian position.

In a statement released by the Prime Minister's Office on Thursday, Netanyahu severely criticized the PA-sponsored study, saying that "denying the link binding the Jewish people and the Western Wall by the Palestinian information office is a travesty."

"When the Palestinians Authority denies the connection between the Jewish people and the Western Wall it raises serious questions as to its intentions to reach a peace deal founded on coexistence and mutual recognition," the statement said, adding that the PA must cease its "distortion of historical facts and encourage a bridge to peace that would lead to a historical reconciliation between the two peoples.

Part of the report released by the Palestinians on Wednesday disputes that the Western Wall was a retaining wall of the Temple compound, discarding centuries of documentation and archaeology.

"This wall has never been a part of what is called the Jewish Temple," the report claimed. "However, it was Islamic tolerance which allowed the Jews to stand before it and cry over its loss."

The report concludes that since Jews have no claim to the area, it is holy Muslim territory and must be part of Palestinian Jerusalem.

SOURCE. A less restrained comment on the matter here

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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 or 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 November, 2010

British Jews have been cowed; Now in survival mode; joining their enemies in attacking Israel

Links about the high level of antisemitism in 21st century Britain here and here and here and here and here. And, perhaps most troubling of all, the new British Conservative government seems to be even less principled in its attitude to Israel than were their Leftist predecessors. In that situation most of the British Jewish leadership is treading the well-worn path of appeasement, which leads only to perdition. A vigorous defence of Israel would do them more good. If ever the traitorous Mick Davis has to flee to Israel for his safety, Israel should turn him back: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Or, perhaps in the words of the greatest Jewish Rabbi of them all: "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth" (Mattew 12: 30)

Chaim Weizmann would turn in his grave were he aware of the public attacks on the Israeli government by some in the UK Jewish leadership.

Mick Davis, the South African-born chief executive of the powerful mining group Xstrata, is chairman of Anglo Jewry’s United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA) – the principal fund-raising institution for Israel of the UK Jewish community.

He also heads a body known as the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) – essentially comprised of a group of wealthy British Jews and their acolytes who, by virtue of their financial largesse, assume a dominant influence on many levels of communal life. The power represented by their collective wealth enables them not to be accountable to anyone and few would dare question their policies.

Anglo Jewry has been blessed in the past with rich philanthropists, many of whom were also endowed with wisdom. Despite his immense wealth and access to the most important leaders in the land, Sir Moses Montefiore was devoted to his people and, far from radiating hubris or arrogance, generated respect and love.

In striking contrast, Mick Davis, also known as “Big Mick,” displays characteristics associated with the nouveau riche, akin to the behavior of some of the Russian- Jewish oligarchs. His opinions are rarely challenged and he contemptuously rejects the suggestion that holding a communal role in any way precludes him from publicly expressing views which would normally be considered incompatible for anyone occupying such a position.

Needless to say, Davis is fully entitled to say whatever comes to his mind. Nobody seeks to deprive him of freedom of expression.

Many Jews are critical of Israeli governments.

But for a person holding senior public office in a major Diaspora community to indulge in crude public attacks on Israeli leaders and relate to Israel’s security requirements in relation to their impact on his image in non-Jewish circles is surely bizarre and utterly unconscionable.

While occupying the role of chairman of the UIJA in a country in which hatred of Israel and anti-Semitism have reached record levels, Davis brazenly incites his fellow Jews to criticize Israel.

RESIDENT IN London, he had the chutzpa to berate the Israeli prime minister “for lacking the courage to take the steps” to advance the peace process, arguing that “I don’t understand the lack of strategy in Israel.” He also employed the terminology of our enemies, predicting an “apartheid state” unless Israel was able to achieve a two-state solution – unashamedly blaming Israelis rather than Palestinians for being the obstacle to peace.

His sheer arrogance was best demonstrated in his most outrageous remark: “I think the government of Israel has to recognize that their actions directly impact on me as a Jew living in London, UK.

When they do good things, it is good for me; when they do bad things, it is bad for me. And the impact on me is as significant as it is on Jews living in Israel... I want them to recognize that.”

Aside from implying that Israel is responsible for the anti-Semitism he is encountering, Davis is effectively warning that when considering defense issues which may have life-or-death implications for Israelis, the government must be sure not to create problems for him in his non- Jewish social circles. From his London mansion, he blithely brushes aside suicide bombers, rockets launched against our children and the threat of nuclear annihilation because his gentile friends might complain about the behavior of his Israeli friends.

Jonathan Hoffman, vice president of the UK Zionist Federation (one of the few Anglo-Jewish leaders courageous enough to criticize Davis), expressed outrage that the UIJA chairman could make such a remark. “We are not aware that Hampstead is within range of Iranian or Hamas missiles, nor that its residents have to send their children to the IDF for three years,” he said.

It is telling that over recent years, Davis has not been renowned for condemning the shameful policies of British governments in relation to Israel. And it is no coincidence that immediately after the UK abstained from the UN vote on the Goldstone Report, Davis chaired a JLC reception at which former foreign minister David Miliband was the key speaker. On that occasion, the “outspoken” Davis felt constrained not to express a single word of complaint or disappointment at the perfidious behavior of the British government in relation to this issue.

More HERE





Whatever happened to freedom of speech in Britain?

We live in a democracy in which it is widely supposed that anything can be said and anything done - at least by celebrity ­television performers.

Yet within politics, freedom of speech is more drastically constrained than ever before. Seldom have those who govern us been so much inhibited in what they feel able to say or write, not by legislatively-imposed censorship, but by a smothering blanket of supposed propriety and oppressive liberal values.

Until Thursday, former Tory MP Howard Flight enjoyed a lower recognition rating than your average park pigeon. He sprang to fame, or rather plunged into notoriety, by making some explosive remarks during an interview prompted by his newly-awarded peerage.

He denounced government benefit cuts as likely to make the middle class have fewer children and the underclass breed more: ‘Well, that’s not very sensible.’

Headlines screamed. David Cameron fumed, Labour raged, The Guardian revelled in the furore. The ‘guilty’ man apologised. Here was another day, another ‘gaffe’, less than a week after Tory veteran Lord Young was forced to resign after telling the nation it had ‘never had it so good’.

Shocking, isn’t it, the wicked things these politicians say? The funny part starts, however, when we examine the words of Howard Flight and Lord Young.

It is a statistical fact that the middle class have fewer children than the underclass, because the former assess their own ability to raise and educate them, and the latter seldom bother.

As financial pressures on the middle class intensify in the years ahead, it is indeed highly likely that some parents will decide to have fewer children, because they cannot afford them.

The truth of Lord Young’s remarks is equally evident: the British people enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle than at any time in their history.

Whether we shall be able to maintain this happy state is another story, and again the middle class has cause for special alarm. But Young was correct to assert that we ‘have never had it so good’.

His words nonetheless cost him his ­government job. He committed the most heinous crime of a modern politician: he told the truth, but in terms unacceptable to the commissars of the liberal establishment.

We claim that we want our ­rulers to be honest, but in ­reality modern politics is ringed by a vast minefield of Things We Know, But Are Not Allowed To Say.

The term political correctness has become a cliche, but identifies something real. In every aspect of our lives, lines are drawn which politicians and even the rest of us cross at our peril, because a raging pack of truth-deniers will spring at our throats.

Examples? Let us start with the NHS. The idea that healthcare must be absolutely free for everybody has been elevated to a neo-religious principle, which David Cameron treats with more respect than the prayer book.

Every intelligent study shows that Britain’s present NHS structure is not indefinitely affordable. People treat their own health more responsibly if they have a financial stake in adopting a sensible lifestyle, however small. Sooner or later, Britain must move to an insurance-based system or go broke.

But it is deemed suicidal for ministers to admit this. No MP who wants to keep his seat will say that all but a handful of obese people eat too much and exercise too little - that their ghastly condition is their own fault.

More than that, no canny politician suggests that any misfortune in life is the victim’s own fault. It is a fundamental tenet of our society that somebody must be blamed for everything that goes wrong, in order that they can be sued. A whole new breed of vulture lawyers has arisen, to fulfil this purpose.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, that supremely foolish Welsh windbag Dr Rowan ­Williams, has denounced the ­Government’s impending ­benefit cuts as not merely ­mistaken, but ‘immoral’. Dr Williams offers no hint of any constructive ideas about how the unaffordable cost of the current welfare state is to be curbed: like Labour’s front bench, he merely proclaims the wickedness of cutting welfare entitlements, as if these were enshrined in Magna Carta.

Rights, rights, rights - the word is abused almost daily by people who should know better, to foreclose debate about how Britain can pay its way through the 21st century, and about what rewards should be conferred on those at the bottom of the pile, heedless of any obligation to strive for themselves.

Another taboo subject is immigration. Almost no frontline politician dares tell the truth about something that has changed this country more irrevocably than two world wars.

Nor are we allowed to say that as long as we are members of the EU and subscribe to the European Convention on Human Rights, pitifully few avenues are open to ministers by which the flow of migrants can be stemmed. It is also these days essential to pretend to think well of Islam, and pay the occasional visit to a mosque.

Any minister who said publicly ‘Race relations in Britain might be in better shape if more ­Muslims who live here showed a willingness to join our culture and adopt our values’ would be out on his ear next day, denounced on front pages as a bigot. It is unacceptable to assert that if newcomers want to come and live in Britain, they will live happiest and fit in best if they dress and act British.

Selection in education is a ­litmus test, which no candidate for high office can flinch from, or rather address honestly. David Cameron has closed the door on new grammar schools and is apparently also against any selective schooling system.

The Left and the education establishment denounce these things as elitist, anti-egalitarian, discriminatory. Some of the mud sticks even to those who argue the rational case for apportioning children to schools and classes according to their abilities and willingness to learn.

It is acceptable for women politicians to speak ill of men, but an ambitious male politician who knows which way his bread is ­buttered will say nothing about the opposite sex, except how wonderful they are. He will not admit, for instance, that some women shamelessly milk employment law to ­pursue bogus claims of sexual ­discrimination; that few pretty women in the workplace fail to make the most of their looks; that extending maternity leave, never mind paternity leave, is potty.

One of the least attractive spectacles in British politics is that of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband vying with each other to demonstrate their credentials as good parents, running the kids to school and taking paternity leave.

As a voter, I don’t want anybody who has chosen to run the country at a time of crisis to be messing about with Lego. I want him dealing with our problems, not his children’s. If a man wants to play the good dad, he should choose another career. But now the entire front rank of British politicians has agreed to play the parenting game, what future candidate for high office will dare break ranks and say ‘This job is too important to waste time changing nappies’?

The silly myth must be sustained that people filling the most demanding offices in the country should also do their bit about the house.

In 2010, it is suicidal to make any statement that might invite a charge of discrimination: I doubt whether any member of the Government could long keep their job after suggesting publicly that gay adoption or IVF treatment for ­lesbians is a bad idea.

The title of the current comedy movie The Kids Are All Right, about a couple of lesbian parents, says it all. Many of us do not think ‘the kids are all right’: but we would have no future at Westminster if we declared as much.

The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, recently took much stick for his alleged blunder in saying that those who want to have a lot of children should think more about taking financial responsibility for them, which most of us think a statement of the obvious.

It is politically perilous these days to assert that the aspirational middle class deserve to succeed because they work hard, use their money sensibly, make the most of education, and accept responsibility for their actions. It is even more hazardous to say that some of those who fail in life do so because they dismiss those principles.

At a more frivolous level, every politician must enthuse about Harry Potter, Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor, or find themselves denounced for being ‘out of touch with the public’.

Can you imagine David Cameron admitting in an interview, as did Harold Macmillan when he was prime minister, that he spent his leisure hours reading the Victorian novels of Anthony Trollope?

If you want to end a promising career fast, tell a TV audience that you hate football. Worse still, suggest that Joanna Lumley is not the fount of all wisdom about public issues and should stick to acting.

We allow and even expect our rulers to offer obeisance to the vacuous culture of celebrity, when we should have the sense instead to demand that they behave like serious people with serious ­values. We might even applaud if they wore ties in ­public, rather than flaunt open-neck shirts to ­emphasise their informality and ‘accessibility’.

The BBC, with its overwhelming power to set the agenda and ­influence values, bears a significant responsibility for driving our politicians into an iron cage of political correctness. Not merely its news coverage but the entire ethos of the BBC’s ­output reflects the values of the liberal establishment - the Rowan Williams view of life, if you like.

The knowledge that BBC correspondents will treat any minister’s deviation from the PC path not as an error but a career-threatening gaffe goes far to explain why traditional rights of free speech are now so rarely exercised at Westminster.

Both Howard Flight and Lord Young were foolish to say what they did in the way they said it, especially at a time when the ­British people’s tolerance is strained by financial crisis and looming spending cuts. But the wider becomes the gulf between obvious realities - or at least, reasonable points of view - and our politicians’ willingness to express these, the worse it must be for us all.

Freedom in Britain is not today threatened by law or official ­censorship, but by an oppressive liberalism which is almost equally pernicious.

SOURCE




British photography phobia again



Their eyes crudely blacked out to disguise their identities, these little girls look as if they might be the victims - or perhaps perpetrators - of a crime.

But this disturbing image was actually issued in a school yearbook. It is the result of the bizarre ‘photography policy’ of headmistress Vicky Parsey, who bans parents from taking pictures in school for fear children’s faces will be superimposed on obscene internet images.

Now two mothers of pupils at the school are stepping up their campaign against the ban in the hope they will be able to take photographs of the school’s nativity play.

Last night local MP Grant Shapps said the ‘absurd’ ban created a ‘climate of fear’ that effectively branded all parents paedophiles.

Housewife and part-time exam invigilator Natasha Stannard, 39, and husband George, 42, have two children among the 450 pupils aged three to 11 at Applecroft primary school in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.

They used to enjoy sending photographs of school pantomimes and sports days to grandparents in South Africa – but three years ago Mrs Parsey declared it had to stop.Mrs Stannard said: ‘I was looking forward to taking photographs at the school’s annual Christmas performance.

‘We were told in a newsletter “We will no longer permit the use of videos, photographs or mobile phone camera pictures of any children by parents/carers/visitors during performances and school events”.’

Mrs Stannard and her friend Caroline Baynes, 44, a project manager whose two children also attend Applecroft school, began lobbying the school to relent.

Instead, the school produced a 17-page ‘photography policy’ which states: ‘The proliferation of internet web pages and social networking sites has given rise to increased concerns that images will be misused and that a child’s face or body could be used to represent matters wholly contrary to the wishes of their parents.’

The photographs of children with eyes blacked out were issued in ‘yearbooks’ given to the parents of four-year-olds in the school nursery.

Photographs of classroom activities were enclosed, but teachers had blacked out the eyes of all children other than the parents’ own. In effect, each parent got a customised yearbook.

Mrs Baynes said: ‘This “photography policy” has created an unnatural situation where you can’t take a photo of your own child. It’s the nanny state gone mad.’

Mr Shapps, a Conservative, said he had taken up the issue with the school with no effect. He said the blacking out of eyes was ‘creepy’, adding: ‘This is absurd – these pictures look like the kids have been taken prisoner. They have created a climate of fear, suggesting that every parent is a paedophile.’

Mrs Stannard and Mrs Baynes are surveying all parents’ attitudes to the draconian policy. They are being supported by campaign group the Manifesto Club, which warns there is a national problem with schools imposing such restrictions.

Manifesto Club director Josie Appleton said: ‘There is no law banning nativity photos. Parents and children now have massive gaps in their family photo album.’

Mrs Parsey, 43, was not available for comment yesterday.

SOURCE







TSA Measures: Liberals' Distorted Versions of Freedom & Equality

By now everyone has experienced, witnessed, or at least heard about the TSA’s brilliant two-layered airport security strategy. The typical passenger must now choose between being the subject of high-tech porn or governmental molestation, all in the name of a political correctness that liberals keep dragging to new heights, or lows, of stupidity. The only way to attempt an analysis of something this idiotic is to dig as far as possible until one reaches a vestige, a sliver, of good intention, common sense or, at least, pathetic swipe at virtue. Our nation was founded on the principles of freedom and equality, but experience should have taught us by now that these two goals are neither completely parallel nor always virtuous.

For example, total freedom to drive as I wish, while seemingly providing me with greater freedom, would invariably lessen the freedom of others to drive safely. Only an imbecile or a traitor would knowingly advocate chaos; and total, unlimited freedom is chaos. The imbecile would favor chaos because he or she is too ignorant to realize the logical succession from rampant freedom to wanton disarray. Conversely, the traitor would favor chaos because he or she realizes its ability to undermine the society the traitor wishes to bring down or transform. The freedom intended by our founders, then, is a freedom of balance, compromise, logic, and common sense. It is the salt that, when appropriately applied to a society, adds the flavor of human integrity only found in true democracies.

The sort of equality proposed by our founders intended a similarly appropriate, balanced, logical, rational, and sensible application. At a deeper level, this equality was intended to be applied in the image of John Rawls’ distributive justice, where everyone is provided with an equal opportunity, but not necessarily an equal guarantee of success. In both the classroom and workplace, this means a teacher or supervisor who provides the tools for success, defends and rewards those who play fair, and refuses to coddle and protect those who do not. This was the original, appropriate intent to affirmative action. However, in the hands of hypocritical liberals, affirmative action has become an excuse to patronize, victimize, and enslave the afflicted while bashing, accusing, and recycling unfairness upon the identified victimizers by fanning the flames of emotions and racism even as such racism is practiced.

Our nation’s original foundation in freedom and equality was sensitive to the voice of the people, but liberals’ present distortions of those goals are anything but. Simply put, they are a distorted mutation of those ideals wrapped in a pathetic, tragic, selective, and hypocritical blanket of political correctness. The freedom of safe travel by most Americans is threatened by a relatively small, clearly defined, and even self-identified group of individuals, but liberals propose to defend that freedom and right using methods which do not further our safety while managing to offend and violate us in other ways.

Imagine answering a fire in your kitchen by setting the whole house on fire in order to avoid implying that the kitchen was the most dangerous part of your home. Suppose you fail an entire class in order to avoid making those who did fail feel stupid or lazy. Imagine refusing to identify the physical characteristics of a bank robber lest one offends those of similar appearance or dress. Imagine going out with anyone who asks you to avoid offending those you reject. If all of these scenarios seem idiotic to you, then you have something to be thankful for when you sit with family and friends to share a meal this Thanksgiving. If, however, you see nothing wrong with these strategies, then you probably think that Katie Couric, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, and Joy Behar are fair, impartial, and clear thinking analysts of our national scene. My favorite personal encounter which such imbecilic thinking is a school system refusing to place dangerous and disruptive students in a special school because most of them happened to be of a particular racial background. Typical liberal thinking: Offend most of us while lumping some dysfunctional people with their functional counterparts and blindly defending that chosen group.

Harming the functional most to protect the dysfunctional some is a mantra that liberals will bash us over the head with until we lose consciousness or switch to their way of thinking, which might be synonymous. Harm the security and integrity of our borders to coddle people who ignore, mock, or thumb their noses at our laws. Harm the interests of those who have paid their dues or followed the law to coddle the interests of those who wish to cut the line for fear that we will be called racists, biased, intolerant or God knows what else. I suggest that it is racist to use race as an excuse to defy, mock, ignore or trample our laws. Harm the interests of all Latinos by pretending that the agenda of those who enter illegally is the same as that of those who have entered legally. Harm the security and safety of Americans and future generations to coddle the desires and sensibilities of people who want to blow us up yesterday.

Whether liberals like it or not, freedom must be regulated to be enhanced; equality is not always possible nor desirable, and profiling is sometimes necessary and rational. Since we have unlimited resources of time, money, energy, and everything else, we must focus our attention on attending to those things most likely to go wrong and those people most likely to make those things go wrong. We encounter profiling every day in many ways. Some eating establishments are given poor safety records as compared to others. Some students have a record of not doing their homework or acting up in class. Some kinds of people tend to bore us on dates. Some television shows, magazines, or newspapers tend to interest us less than others. Differentiation is part of life, and profiling is rational, sensible, logical, and justifiable differentiation. Liberals will tell us that profiling is prejudice, but that notion assumes that all profiling is baseless and superficial, which is simply not the case.

The fact is, liberals tend to select causes and groups to defend and blindly protect without regard to common sense, logic, or fairness. Typically, and sadly, those causes and groups tend to be selected not based on the lofty ideals which liberals portray but, more likely, on some ulterior agenda or purpose. One wonders how fervently liberals would defend illegal immigrants if such people were expected to vote for conservatives. Likewise, liberals have shown a great sensitivity to Muslims and a corresponding lack of sensitivity to Christians. If liberals were truly as enlightened as they pretend to be, they would differentiate between those legally and illegally in this country, and refuse to play the race card against conservatives in an obvious attempt to enflame the emotions of all involved. Likewise, if liberals were as fair as they portray themselves to be, they would treat all religions equally, but any fool can see that this is not the case as routinely shown in public schools, the media, and the selective censorship of Christmas.

If the present TSA security measures seem unfair, offensive, intrusive, and even mindless, it is because they are. They purport to offer us safety when evidence shows that terrorists will still find ways to avoid detection. They pretend to be fair and even-handed when neither evidence nor experience justifies their blanket application across the population. They pretend to offer the freedom of two options when each option violates the integrity and sensibilities of all exposed. Liberals would rather insult and offend most of us than insult or offend their favored group. Ironically, their very protection of this group mimics their patronizing approach to illegal immigration. Liberals offensively lump those legally and illegally in this country under the blanket of immigration in order to paint any efforts against those illegally here as attacks on all immigrants. Likewise, they conveniently and offensively lump any measures against radical Muslim terrorists as attacks on all Muslims, including the many law-abiding ones who care about this country, in order to paint themselves as noble defenders of that group.

Scanning and groping grandmothers and children while defending and welcoming border crossers is the sort of logic, justice, and common sense that liberals spill on us every day. Those looking for our national interest should not bother looking under liberals’ beloved political correctness, where only their pet causes and agendas may be found.

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 or 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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26 November, 2010

British flower arrangers and bell ringers fighting crazy criminal vetting of anyone who works near children

The British take to bureaucracy like ducks to water but a few rebel

Last January, Annabel Hayter, chairwoman of Gloucester Cathedral Flower Guild, received an email saying that she and her 60 fellow flower arrangers would have to undergo a CRB check. CRB stands for Criminal Records Bureau, and a CRB check is a time-consuming, sometimes expensive, pretty much always pointless vetting procedure that you must go through if you work with children or ‘vulnerable adults’.

Everyone else had already been checked: the ‘welcomers’ at the cathedral door; the visitors’ guides; the whole of the cathedral office (though they rarely left their room). The flower guild was all that remained. The cathedral authorities expected no resistance. Though the increasing demand for ever tighter safety regulation has become one of the biggest blights on Britain today, we are all strangely supine: frightened not to comply.

But not so Annabel Hayter. ‘I am not going to do it,’ she said. And her act of rebellion sparked a mini-­revolution among the other cathedral flower ladies. In total, she received 30 letters from guild members who judged vetting to be either an invasion of privacy (which it ­certainly is), insecure (the CRB has a frightening ­tendency to return the wrong results), or unnecessary (they are the least likely paedophiles in the country). Several women threatened to resign if forced to undergo it.

Thus began the battle of Gloucester Cathedral, between the dean and the flower guild — a battle which is just reaching its final stage. First the guild asked why the checks were necessary. The answer turned out to be that the flower arrangers shared a toilet with the choirboys, and without checks there would be ‘paedophiles infiltrating the flower guild’.

The ladies of the guild snorted with derision — and the cathedral retaliated with another burst of pointless bureaucracy. It carried out a risk assessment on the guild, which was completed in early October.

When Hayter asked to see the assessment, she was told that this was ‘private information for the chapter and the council’ — but she still wasn’t cowed: ‘Why? It’s a risk assessment on us! We must surely be entitled to see it?’

While Annabel Hayter has become the figurehead of the growing resistance to the CRB, she and her guild are not alone. All over the country, brave volunteers are ­digging in their toes.

Lord Vinson, who acts as warden in the church of Ilderton, Northumberland, is another who refuses to be vetted. He says the CRB ­procedure is not just pointless, but dangerous, offering ‘an illusion of protection, an illusion of safety’ — and at huge public cost. Checks, he says, are ‘turning off sound volunteers, and encouraging children to distrust all adults’.

So far Lord Vinson has received a severe letter saying that the bishop is ‘very disappointed in your attitude’; ultimately, he will probably be asked to resign.

Though the Church as an institution has become horribly infected with CRB madness, with a love of petty regulations and procedures, there are members of the resistance within it. The former Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, has delivered a broadside against ­‘hysterical’ CRB checks.

Dr Wright realised he had to take a stand when he discovered his 80-year-old assistant filling in a CRB form, ready to present her ID documents to the very church she had served all her adult life.

Jeremy Hummerstone, a reverend of Great Torrington, Devon, held out for months against his archdeacon’s demands that he be ­vetted. ‘I’ve been in the parish a long time,’ he said, ‘and I took strong exception to being asked to go through with this. ‘We don’t need all these rules. They should use their common sense — as I use mine.’

It was when Mr Hummerstone retired and moved to Yorkshire that they finally caught up with him. The Exeter Child Protection Adviser reported him to the Independent Safeguarding Authority, saying that he ‘persistently or ­recklessly failed to comply with the safeguarding policies and procedures of the organisation’.

This is the hallmark of CRB madness: it persuades even sensible, decent people to behave in the most ridiculous ways. It puffs up their self-esteem with an ­important-sounding title, then encourages them to use a slew of petty laws at their disposal to ­punish disobedience.

Every Church of England and Roman Catholic diocese has at least one full-time safeguarding officer (or adviser), who sits on panels with Orwellian-sounding names such as the ‘Multi-Agency Diocesan Safeguarding Management Group’ or the ‘Risk Assessment Panel’ of the ‘Diocesan Safeguarding Reference Group’.

Each church parish must also appoint a child safeguarding co-ordinator, with responsibilities to ‘monitor the implementation of diocesan guidance’ at a local level.

This structure does little to stop incidents of child abuse, but is highly effective at micromanaging the everyday activities of church workers and volunteers. ‘In a way, the CRB has become a new religious axiom,’ says Mr Hummerstone.

He is quite right. These officers seem to occupy a position some way above worldly or religious authority. But the crucial point — and the reason we need a resistance — is that their power is growing.

Very few of these rules come from central government or the law. Yes, they originate from government guidelines (cooked up in response to the Soham murders), but they have spread like a virus through institutions; fuelled by power-hungry bureaucrats, panic, fear and a collective sacrifice of common sense.

Institutions have invented their own child-protection case law. When Tom Addiscott, a church ­volunteer (and professor), refused to be CRB checked to help out with his church’s ‘Tots and Teddies’, he was told that it was ‘the law’ that he be vetted every five years. But there is no law that says this. Other organisations believe firmly that CRB checks are required every two or three years.

There is now a ‘safeguarding ­procedure’ for everything from ‘safe photography’ at nativity plays, to ‘appropriate touch’ for bell ringing, to rules on transporting children to and from church events.

Take bell ringing. It was once ­customary for junior bell ringers to turn up an hour early to get extra practice with an expert — but now a second adult must attend as a ‘watcher’. The Central Council of Church Bell Ringers has produced guidance on maintaining ‘A Safe Environment for Young People in the Belfry’.

Of particular concern is the situation where a young ringer’s bell is out of control, and an adult needs to ‘take hold of the learner’s hand to take control of the bell rope’. The document suggests that this hand-grabbing action be explained and ‘demonstrated to the parents ­during their early visit to a ­practice’.

This year’s round of nativity plays will, in the age of camera phones, be less documented than ever, thanks to growing bans on photography in schools and churches.

So the revolution is overdue. The CRB and other ‘safeguarding’ ­procedures have become part of a war not on perverts, but on the best and most decent members of our society — and it’s these members who must follow Annabel Hayter’s lead and stand up and say: ‘Enough! We refuse to be checked!’

The Coalition Government’s review of the Vetting and Barring Scheme is extremely welcome, but it can only do so much. The contagion runs not through government, but through the minds of officials.

Only if mothers, flower arrangers, choir-masters, reverends, teachers, parents and peers stand up to be counted will the whole shoddy structure start to weaken, crack, and finally come tumbling down.

Nobody actually believes in these absurd rules; they have spread by acquiescence — and they can yet be stopped with a little resistance.

Every week, there are new points of rebellion. Two mothers in ­Welwyn Garden City are petitioning outside their children’s primary school, calling for a reversal of the school’s photo ban which prevents them from recording this year’s nativity play.

Annabel Hayter has not yet received her final summons for a CRB check, but she has her response prepared. ‘If I say “I’m not going to be checked”, what are they going to do? If I carry on arranging flowers, will they get the constabulary in?’

Annabel knows that officers breaking up the spring flower festival would not be good PR. Annabel Hayter has begun to realise this battle can be won.

SOURCE





More perverse British justice

You can get 4 years jail for denying the Holocaust but deliberately driving your car into a policeman and hitting him is minor

After mowing down a policeman in an attempt to escape justice, shoplifter Saphhia Da-Silva was expected to face the full wrath of the British legal system. But instead magistrates have adjourned sentencing – so she can enjoy a pre-booked seven-week holiday to Australia.

Da-Silva was spotted shoplifting at a Gap store and was followed to her car by two police community support officers. As she attempted to escape in a silver BMW, hit an empty pushchair and then PCSO Daniel Smith flinging him 5ft in the air.

Her case had been adjourned for pre-sentence reports, and a sentencing hearing would have likely been held in mid-December. But the mother-of-two's planned seven-week trip Down Under, on a visa, is from November 28 to January 15 so Ashford magistrates agreed to adjourn the date until January 31. Nigel Numas, for Da-Silva, said: 'She wants to go to Australia and take her mother and children to see her nan.'

Chairman of the bench Anne Norris told him: 'We are dealing with something extremely serious. Is it relevant for your client to go on holiday? 'There is also a victim who is off sick and has been seriously injured.'

But Mr Numas explained that Da-Silva cared for her mentally ill mother, as well as her two children, a six-year-old daughter and four-year-old son. He said: 'In terms of going to Australia this is to get a bit of respite and a bit of help from her grandmother."

Mrs Norris asked for authentication of the trip and Mr Numas said it had been approved by a clinical team. Magistrates studied documentation before agreeing to the longer adjournment.

Da-Silva had admitted physically assaulting PCSO Smith, failing to stop after a road accident and shoplifting £236.12 worth of clothes from Gap on November 5 this year.

She also asked for a further offence from that day - of stealing £205.95 in clothes from Ralph Lauren at the same retail outlet - to be taken into consideration.

Da Silva, a former manager for Gap, was warned that a custodial sentence was still being considered, despite her holiday being allowed by the court. 'What you did was absolutely appalling,' said Magistrate Mrs Norris. 'You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. You deliberately drove at a PCSO causing him to go 5ft in the air.'

PCSO Smith seemed so badly injured after the incident that a colleague thought he had been killed. Colleague Stuart Manning, who had also been injured, said: 'I believed he was dead. I was astounded that a person could run the risk of killing or injuring someone for the sake of a few items.' Both men are still off sick.

The court heard that after the incident Da-Silva was arrested at a nearby club where she was found to have a magnetic tag remover, used to take off security tags in shops. It was said she had changed from career woman to thief in a 'spectacular fall from grace'.

She had once been a manager in the very chain she stole from and was the youngest manager in the country for the retail outlet.

'Pressures of her life, financial pressures, were the reason for the shoplifting,' said Mr Numas. 'It has led to a spectacular fall from grace.'

SOURCE





British girl arrested for 'burning Koran and posting footage on Facebook'

If it's her own book, what's the problem with burning it -- or is Muslim law now British law?

A BRITISH teenager has been arrested on suspicion of inciting religious hatred after she allegedly burnt a copy of the Koran and posted footage of the incident on Facebook.

The girl, 15, has been bailed pending further inquiries.

Police also arrested a 14-year-old boy on suspicion of making threats over Facebook. He too has been bailed pending further inquiries.

The girl is accused of burning an English-language version of the Islamic holy book at her school in Sandwell, near Birmingham in central England.

A police spokesman said: "The local neighborhood team have strong links with the school and have been working closely with key partners from the community and the local authority to resolve the matter locally.

"Police will investigate and monitor any crime reported by individuals who may have been targeted."

SOURCE





Connecticut Roller Rink Defends Policy on Headscarves After Muslim Woman Complains‏

A roller skating rink in Connecticut is standing behind its decision to ask a Muslim woman to remove her headscarf because it could present a danger to skaters if it fell off.

Marisol Rodriguez-Colon was set to attend her 4-year-old niece’s birthday party at Ron-A-Roll but apparently didn’t make it very far past the check-in counter before she was stopped by a rink employee, who offered her two options: remove her headscarf or wear a helmet over it.

Rodriguez-Colon said she felt “mortified” when an employee at a rink asked her to wear a helmet on top of her religious headscarf, or hijab.

But Jennifer Conde, the operations manager at the Ron-A-Roll, said the rink’s main priority is the safety of its patrons. “We are not insensitive to people’s religion,” she said. “We just focus on safety.”

In a statement to FoxNews.com, Ron-A-Roll said it has a policy that prohibits headwear to be worn in the building. Safety helmets are offered to those that are unable to remove headwear for any reason, because they are secured with a chin strap.

Each roller rink has its own rules. In many cases, these rules are tailored to fit their unique clientele.

The Roller Skating Association, through a lawyer, said that the “recommendation from the RSA is to not infringe on the use of recognized religious headgear unless the use of the headgear would expose other patrons to a risk that would not be otherwise present.”

Ron-A-Roll has a history of inflexibility to its rules, even when they turn out to be public relation nightmares. Back in January, a bald woman suffering from cancer left the rink when employees insisted that she wear a helmet over her head scarf. The woman, apparently embarrassed, left the rink. Friends of the woman created a Facebook page calling for the boycott of the rink.

Frank Schiazza, the owner of CN Skate Palace in Pennsylvania, said he has a "no hat" rule at his rink but never forced a Muslim woman to remove her scarf. “They usually don’t fly off,” he said.

Ron-A-Roll’s meticulous attention to details, in this case, is troubling to Mongi Dhaouadi, the executive director of the Connecticut office for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Dhaouadi said the rink has all but turned a deaf ear when he asked to talk about the matter. “These were two women who were not allowed in because they wore this headscarf,” he said. “They had absolutely no intention to skate.”

The women told Dhaouadi that few people at the rink were wearing a helmet at the time. “I’m hoping it’s a misunderstanding,” he said.

Janine Gallo, who organized the party, said she signed a contract that assured the club that the rules would be followed by her guests. The two women, according to Gallo, were not on the roster and created an unnecessary scene. “They were shouting that they were going to sue,” said Gallo.

The worker told Gallo that all she needed to do was put a helmet over the headscarf.

“The kids were having a great time, but they had to make it a racial thing,” Gallo told FoxNews.com. “It really shouldn’t be.”

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 or 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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25 November, 2010

British foreign policy to be dictated by Arab states



This is a triumph for Britain's FCO (Foreign office), who have always been pro-Arab, allegedly because of a shared interest in secretive homosexuality. The FCO obviously found a new government easy to bamboozle

British foreign policy will change to reflect Arab concerns over the Middle East peace process as part of the Coalition's efforts to seal a strategic agreement with the Gulf during the Queen's visit to the region. Whitehall officials said Foreign Secretary William Hague's decision to reach out to Gulf states in an effort to secure better diplomatic and trade ties meant Britain had to "take on board" Arab foreign policy goals.

Requesting better ties would be a two-way street, not just plea for more defence contracts and exports, they said. "It will be a six lane highway with movement in both directions," said one diplomat. "We have to respond to what Gulf States want. If we want a long-term partnership on foreign policy, then changes in our stance have to be part of it."

The Queen arrived in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, at the start of a five-day visit that will also take in Oman.

Both countries are long-standing allies, where the royal family also has strong personal ties with local leaders. The United Arab Emirates end of the visit was rearranged after a planned tour last year was cancelled at the last minute. The visit to Oman is to join the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of Sultan Qaboos's ascension to the throne.

But the visit has taken on a more significant, and unusually political context both with the change of government in Britain and increasing tensions with Iran a short distance away on the other side of the Gulf.

Mr Hague set improving relations with the Gulf and India as his first policy goals, and both David Cameron, the prime minister, and Liam Fox, the defence secretary, visited Abu Dhabi within a month of taking office.

Iran has threatened to retaliate against western interests in the Gulf in the event of a western-led air strike against sites associated with its nuclear programme. With 100,000 British residents of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the other emirates alone, and a strong British and American military presence, the MoD regards a joint approach with the UAE as vital.

To underline the point, the Queen and Prince Philip will watch a fly-past today (Thursday) of Mirage and F16 fighter jets from the UAE Air Force, joined by four RAF Typhoons. The event is ceremonial, to mark the Queen's first visit to the country since 1979, but the Typhoons will be staying on next week along with elements of the Royal Navy for a joint Air Defence drill in the Gulf, which Tehran will be watching closely.

Officials in both Abu Dhabi and London make no bones about stressing the significance of the defence relationship as the West and its regional allies gear up to a possible confrontation with Iran.

That may mean yet further withdrawal of traditional British support for Israel, with criticism of its government already more marked under Mr Hague than it was under New Labour government.

In another indication of the Foreign Office's new sensitivity to Arab opinion, officials admitted to The Daily Telegraph that policies on the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006, Israel's invasion of Gaza in 2008-9, and its occupation of the West Bank and settlements policy were "motivators" for the Islamic radicalism that they confronted daily in the Gulf.

SOURCE







The 25 Best Quotes About Liberals

John Hawkins is an inveterate maker of lists. This is one of his better ones

25) Whenever I read liberals reporting about the goings- on of conservatives I always get the nature-documentary vibe. A liberal reporter puts on his or her Dian Fossey hat in order to attempt to write another installment of Conservatives in the Mist. I've followed this particular brand of reporting for years, it's almost a fetish of mine. Most attempts fail. Of these lesser varieties, there's fear ("Troglodytes!"), mockery ("Irrelevant troglodytes!"), condescension ("I had to explain to them they're troglodytes."), bewilderment ("Why don't they understand they're troglodytes?"), astonishment (Dear God, they're not all troglodytes!"), and a few combinations of all the above. -- Jonah Goldberg

24) There are no bad guys on the left. There are only people who’ve been driven to desperation by conservative evil. -- Allahpundit

23) Words mean nothing to liberals. They say whatever will help advance their cause at the moment, switch talking points in a heartbeat, and then act indignant if anyone uses the exact same argument they were using five minutes ago. -- Ann Coulter

22) Inside many liberals is a totalitarian screaming to get out. They don't like to have another point of view in the room that they don't squash and the way they try to squash it is by character assassination and name calling. -- David Horowitz

21) The reason any conservative's failing is always major news is that it allows liberals to engage in their very favorite taunt: Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy is the only sin that really inflames them. Inasmuch as liberals have no morals, they can sit back and criticize other people for failing to meet the standards that liberals simply renounce. It's an intriguing strategy. By openly admitting to being philanderers, draft dodgers, liars, weasels and cowards, liberals avoid ever being hypocrites. -- Ann Coulter

20) Indiscriminateness of thought does not lead to indiscriminateness of policy. It leads the modern liberal to invariably side with evil over good, wrong over right and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success. Why? Very simply if nothing is to be recognized as better or worse than anything else then success is de facto unjust.
There is no explanation for success if nothing is better than anything else and the greater the success the greater the injustice. Conversely and for the same reason, failure is de facto proof of victimization and the greater the failure, the greater the proof of the victim is, or the greater the victimization. -- Evan Sayet

19) It was in the 1960s that the left convinced itself that there is something fascistic about patriotism and something perversely "patriotic" about running down America. Anti-Americanism -- a stand-in for hatred of Western civilization -- became the stuff of sophisticates and intellectuals as never before. Flag burners became the truest "patriots" because dissent -- not just from partisan politics, but the American project itself -- became the highest virtue. -- Jonah Goldberg

18) But all liberals only have empathy for the exact same victims -- always the ones that are represented by powerful liberal interest groups. -- Ann Coulter

17) Liberals have created, and the minority leadership has exploited, a community of dependent people, unaware of the true route to prosperity and happiness: self-reliance and self-investment. Instead, people are told that America is unjust, unfair, and full of disadvantages. They are told that their only hope is for government to fix their problems. What has happened is that generations of people have bought into this nonsense and as a result have remained hopelessly mired in poverty and despair -- because the promised solutions don't work. And they will never work -- they never have. -- Rush Limbaugh

16) One of the overriding points of Liberal Fascism is that all of the totalitarian "isms" of the left commit the fallacy of the category error. They all want the state to be something it cannot be. They passionately believe the government can love you, that the state can be your God or your church or your tribe or your parent or your village or all of these things at once. Conservatives occasionally make this mistake, libertarians never do, liberals almost always do. -- Jonah Goldberg

15) Given the religious nature and the emotional power of Leftist values, Jews and Christians on the Left often derive their values from the Left more than from their religion. -- Dennis Prager

14) When one becomes a liberal, he or she pretends to advocate tolerance, equality and peace, but hilariously, they're doing so for purely selfish reasons. It's the human equivalent of a puppy dog's face: an evolutionary tool designed to enhance survival, reproductive value and status. In short, liberalism is based on one central desire: to look cool in front of others in order to get love. Preaching tolerance makes you look cooler, than saying something like, “please lower my taxes” -- Greg Gutfeld

13) Stupidity is a luxury and you will find time and time and time and again that those who are overwhelmingly on the left are those who can afford to be. -- Evan Sayet

12) With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society. -- Ann Coulter

11) If the truth is boring, civilization is irksome. The constraints inherent in civilized living are frustrating in innumerable ways. Yet those with the vision of the anointed often see these constraints as only arbitrary impositions, things from which they--and we all--can be “liberated.” The social disintegration which has followed in the wake of such liberation has seldom provoked any serious reconsideration of the whole set of assumptions--the vision--which led to such disasters. That vision is too well insulated from feedback. -- Thomas Sowell

10) Liberals claim to love gays when it allows them to vent their spleen at Republicans. But disagree with liberals and their first response is to call you gay. Liberals are gays' biggest champions on issues most gays couldn't care less about, like gay marriage or taxpayer funding of photos of men with bullwhips up their derrieres. But who has done more to out, embarrass, and destroy the lives of gay men who prefer to keep their orientation private than Democrats? Who is more intolerant of gays in the Republican Party than gays in the Democratic Party? -- Ann Coulter

9) End results that work that don't involve government threaten liberals. -- Rush Limbaugh

8) In their zeal for particular kinds of decisions to be made, those with the vision of the anointed seldom consider the nature of the process by which decisions are made. Often what they propose amounts to third-party decision making by people who pay no cost for being wrong--surely one of the least promising ways of reaching decisions satisfactory to those who must live with the consequences. -- Thomas Sowell

7) That is one reason "feelings" and "compassion" are two of the most often used liberal terms. "Character" is no longer a liberal word because it implies self-restraint. "Good and evil" are not liberal words either as they imply a moral standard beyond one's feelings. In assessing what position to take on moral or social questions, the liberal asks him or herself, "How do I feel about it?" or "How do I show the most compassion?" -- not "What is right?" or "What is wrong?" For the liberal, right and wrong are dismissed as unknowable, and every person chooses his or her own morality. -- Dennis Prager

6) In their haste to be wiser and nobler than others, the anointed have misconceived two basic issues. They seem to assume (1) that they have more knowledge than the average member of the benighted and (2) that this is the relevant comparison. The real comparison, however, is not between the knowledge possessed by the average member of the educated elite versus the average member of the general public, but rather the total direct knowledge brought to bear though social processes (the competition of the marketplace, social sorting, etc.), involving millions of people, versus the secondhand knowledge of generalities possessed by a smaller elite group. -- Thomas Sowell

5) Everyone moralizes. The suggestion that liberals aren't moralizers is so preposterous it makes it hard for me to take any of them seriously when they wax indignant about "moralizers." Almost every day, they tell us what is moral or immoral to think and to say about race, taxes, abortion — you name it. They explain it would be immoral for me to spend more of my own money on my own children when that money could be spent by government on other people’s children. In short, they think moralizing is fine. They just want to have a monopoly on the franchise. -- Jonah Goldberg

4) If you can somehow force a liberal into a point- counterpoint argument, his retorts will bear no relation to what you've said -- unless you were in fact talking about your looks, your age, your weight, your personal obsessions, or whether you are a fascist. In the famous liberal two-step, they leap from one idiotic point to the next, so you can never nail them. It's like arguing with someone with Attention Deficit Disorder. -- Ann Coulter

3) My analysis is that most faith based systems depend upon an absolute moral order. The declaration of things as absolutely evil or absolutely good, as sin or virtue, puts liberalism into a horrible position because it's founded on no judgment on anything. As a result, any faith that is seriously practiced or understood is a challenge to the politics that depend on constituencies that would rather not be told that their choices are bad and their lives are not virtuous. -- Hugh Hewitt

2) The charge is often made against the intelligentsia and other members of the anointed that their theories and the policies based on them lack common sense. But the very commonness of common sense makes it unlikely to have any appeal to the anointed. How can they be wiser and nobler than everyone else while agreeing with everyone else? -- Thomas Sowell

1) To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil. -- Charles Krauthammer

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Californian Leviathan

Censorship, the forceful prohibition of the expression of man's thinking, is one of the most destructive crimes that a government can commit against its own people -- because it makes all the other crimes possible. This is why a government that seeks to achieve unlimited power will always impose censorship -- as a matter of necessity to control the citizenry and keep us docile and uninformed. So now, as a chilling development on our road toward statism in America, attempts to limit and control the ability of individuals to express their views are becoming more prevalent. One such instance has recently impacted a Tea Party group in the San Francisco Bay area.

The East Bay Tea Party posted billboards along California's highway 680 in April of this year. The signs read "Vote them out!" and things of that nature, generally expressing disdain for those currently holding positions of power in the government, in addition to advertising the group's website. The signs were posted on private property and did not obstruct traffic or pose any kind of hazard.

Over the 4th of July weekend, vandals trespassed onto one of the properties and destroyed the signs located there. The EBTP replaced those signs, but another, more formidable group of thugs was lying in wait. The individuals on whose property the billboards were located have recently been harassed, threatened, and intimidated -- not by another gang of street thugs but by the California Department of Transportation. The signs have been taken down as a result of this coercion.

Make no mistake -- the state action was lawful, albeit horrendously immoral. And that is the point: government regulations on all levels have reached the stage where little action is possible for an individual without first obtaining permission from local, state, and federal authorities. Section 5350 of the Orwellian Outdoor Advertising Act of the State of California states:

"No person shall place any advertising display within the areas affected by the provisions of this chapter in this state without first having secured a written permit from the director or from his authorized agent."

The affected areas include anything within view of a public highway. This means that before placing a sign on his or her private property within view of any highway in California, an individual must first obtain written permission from the director of the California DOT.

The scope of the state authority includes approval not only of size, location, etc., but also of content (section 5355). So before posting a sign that opposes the government, as the East Bay Tea Party did, one must first obtain permission from the government.

What happens if someone simply takes the initiative to put up a sign on his property, in view of a highway, without first searching through the formidable labyrinth of federal, state, and local regulations to determine whether or not he must obtain permission and, if so, from whom? This was the case with the EBTP members who innocently assumed that one could do what one wishes on one's own private property. Not so. The bureaucrats who threatened the property owners in our case cited section 5463:

"For the purpose of removing or destroying any advertising display placed in violation of this chapter, the director or the director's authorized agent may enter upon private property".

This means that government officials may storm onto private property and forcibly remove and destroy any sign that is viewable from any California highway if the offending sign is not in compliance with the latest set of regulations or the whim of "the director."

In case that isn't bad enough, the law indicates that the property owner will be billed for the removal and destruction of his sign and may be further penalized with a fine of $100 to $10,000, plus $100 per day for each day the sign remains after written notice of noncompliance is issued, plus enforcement costs and attorney's fees, plus forfeiture of any revenue that may have been collected as a result of the noncompliant sign, plus the owner may be charged with a misdemeanor.

The net result of all this is that an individual can incur significant financial penalties and be charged with a crime if he chooses to post a message on his own property without permission from "the director." What conceivable justification could exist for such an obscene, oppressive, and viciously immoral set of policies on the part of the California government? No speculation is needed. An attempt at justification is given here in section 5226:

"The regulation of advertising displays adjacent to any interstate highway or primary highway as provided in section 5405 is hereby declared to be necessary to promote the public safety, health, welfare, convenience and enjoyment of public travel, [...] . Outdoor advertising is an integral part of the business and marketing function, and an established segment of the national economy, and should be allowed to exist in business areas, subject to reasonable controls in the public interest."

There it is -- that magic phrase that has been used to justify the spilling of rivers of blood and the destruction of hundreds of millions of lives over the past century alone -- the public interest. It has been given many names over the centuries: the tribe, the proletariat, das Volk, the race, the church, the needy, the underserved, but what is the nature of this collective, and what makes it worthy of human sacrifice?

The fact is that there is no such entity as "the public" or any subset thereof. Any group is merely a collection of individuals and as such has no rights above and apart from those of the individuals in this group. If a group did claim such "rights," this would lead to an inevitable contradiction, since it would necessarily usurp the rights of some or all of the group's constituents, thereby destroying the very concept of rights -- there can be no "right" to violate the rights of others.

Someone ought to explain this to "the director" and to those who have unjustly given him the power to capriciously destroy the property and the lives of sovereign individuals who rightly express their disdain for him and that which makes him possible: a leviathan that has long since exceeded its justifiable role as a protector of individual rights and has instead become their destroyer.

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Is copyright protection excessive?

We would all be better off if it lasted only for a few years, at most

He has been called the “immortal god of harmony,” “the beginning and end of all music,” “the supreme genius of music…who knows everything and feels everything,” and “a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity.” Yet he behaved like any unauthorized music sampler, mash-up artist, or file-sharing college student. He recirculated other people’s music—sometimes with attribution, sometimes not—with often minor changes. He cribbed material, borrowed music to plug gaps in his work, and reused his own creations with an abandon that would shame a freelancer for Demand Media.

This punkish intellectual property scofflaw was Johann Sebastian Bach, master of the baroque style, spiritual father of modern Western music, literal father of a family of musicians, and inspiration to working creators everywhere. He was also —maybe not coincidentally—a serial user of other people’s work. According to one legend, as a child Bach would jailbreak and copy music his family had locked away. Later, he came into his own as a composer in part by taking a large body of work by Antonio Vivaldi and transposing it for the keyboard.

He was even more aggressive in cannibalizing his own output. Music for the funeral of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen turns up later in The St. Matthew Passion. All six parts of the The Christmas Oratorio are retreads from a secular work Bach had written on commission for the Saxon court. Bach’s Mass in B Minor, described by one 19th-century musician as “The Greatest Artwork of All Times and All People,” is almost entirely recycled. “Almost movement by movement you can trace the Mass in B Minor to earlier work,” says Daniel R. Melamed, professor of music at the University of Indiana. “Bach was not captive to his own material.”

How was he making money on this output? How can a creative work have value in an environment without any intellectual property protection?

A new study by a German economic historian hints at an answer. In his two-volume History and Nature of Copyright, Eckhard Höffner compares and contrasts the industrial-age economic histories of Britain (which provided copyright protection beginning with the 1710 Statute of Anne) and the 39 German states (where a uniform copyright code was impossible to enforce across a loose federation).

Höffner’s discovery: German writers produced more books and made more money than their English counterparts. Through the middle of the 19th century, the German book market produced and sold roughly five times as many books as the British. The advantage was interrupted only by the Napoleonic occupation, and it did not end permanently until after 1848, when Germany began to enforce consistent copyright rules.

Höffner received a cool-to-negative American reception for his claim that Germany’s piratical publishing free-for-all contributed to faster GDP growth during the period. But his numbers on the book business remain compelling. In Britain, books cost about a week’s pay for a working person. In copyright-free Germany, the price was about half a day’s pay.

Yet payments to authors were more generous in Germany than in Britain, with British authors typically surrendering all rights to a publishing house and seeing little in commissions, sales of rights, or profit sharing. German writers got much higher up-front payouts and earned enough to live in middle-class comfort. Self-publishing, which existed only in subscription form in Britain, thrived in Germany. A system that pleased both creators and consumers: How was it possible?

It helps to be happy in your work. Bach was not as entrepreneurial as his friend Georg Philipp Telemann—a publisher of his own music and precursor of the independent musician/composer—but he augmented his late-feudal stipends with moonlighting, teaching jobs, freelance performing, and similar small-time hustles. “Most of the music Bach writes he composes for various duties,” Melamed says. “Often writing a piece is the easiest way to get exactly what he needs.”

Bach had an incentive to keep producing new crowd pleasers. Maybe he suffered from a lack of intellectual property protection. One of the challenges in building the Bach catalog was sorting out all the copycats, transposers, and claimants to his throne. But in his own career, he seemed to see himself as a beneficiary of the freedom to appropriate. The result was infinitely adaptable music. Spend 10 minutes on YouTube, and you will find synth-popsters still working in the Switched on Bach genre that began in the early days of electronica, Celtic singers doing airy covers of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” sub-Malmsteens turning Invention No. 13 or Toccata & Fugue in D Minor into speed metal, “Air on the G String” played on a saw.

Genius is always an outlier, but the long half-life of baroque oldies suggests something else about the life-giving powers of the public domain. America’s culture is dotted with gems like It’s a Wonderful Life and Night of the Living Dead, works that grew famous when they fell out of I.P. protection and became free fodder to distributors. Maybe these movies were so great they’d have risen to the top in any market. (I’m inclined to believe it about Night of the Living Dead.) Maybe Bach would be with us under any circumstances. But history suggests otherwise.

Bach was considered rustic and backward at the time of his death, and only his keyboard works remained in wide circulation, for their instructional value. His widow and sons, however, worked hard to disseminate his music, occasionally selling manuscripts but mainly trying to keep the work in front of an audience. Building the father’s reputation was good for the family business. It remained good business long after Bach’s 19th-century rediscovery, even after Bach’s line of direct heirs went cold. Leipzig merchants still do solid business on Bach tourism.

It’s worth remembering in our own time of blessed disunion, as copyright protection legally extends nearly a century after an author’s death but the interwebs make copyright difficult to protect. A creator—musical god or Blingee artist—needs fans. But fans lose interest if the barriers to entry are too high. In an interview with Heise magazine, Höffner explains that reduced-price back issues sold well in all the markets he looked at—“but only if there was still someone who moved the book. For most books, readers’ interest had waned.”

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 or 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 November, 2010

British Army Reserve recruits 'racially abused'

POLICE fear Midland Territorial Army recruits who claim they have been racially abused while wearing their uniforms are victims of hate crimes. The cadets say they have been verbally abused and spat at while walking to training sessions near Blues’ St Andrews stadium in Bordesley, Birmingham.

One recruit has reported that driver slowed down his car, wound down his window and shouted: “I hope you get blown up by an IED. Another says he was chased by a group of Asian [Pakistani] youths who screamed insults and spat at him.

West Midlands Police said they are investigating the allegations. A spokesman said: “The incidents in question have been recorded as racially motivated section four public order offences. “Officers are actively pursuing the case and following a number of lines of enquiry.”

He added that the alleged attacks are being treated as hate crimes because of the racially motivated element. Cops are hunting the abusive motorist after a cadet noted down his registration plate details.

It is not the first time uniformed forces personnel have suffered abuse while in public. In 2008 bosses at RAF Wittering ordered airmen not to wear their military dress when visiting the nearby town of Peterborough because they were being verbally abused by civilians. The ban caused outrage with the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown saying he was “furious”. It was later overturned following the public outcry.

Territorial Army bosses have refused to confirm whether they will ban Midland cadets from wearing their uniforms while walking to training sessions in Birmingham. Last night a spokesman said: “I am not willing to discuss our security arrangements on an individual basis. “We take the safety and security of all our personal very seriously. “We do not demand that cadets where their uniform in public, they are civilians until they walk through the gate.

“I think it is fair to say these were isolated incidents. “On the whole we have a very good relationship with the local population who have always shown us fantastic support.”

The allegations of abuse in Birmingham come as Territorial Army members continue sacrifice their lives fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Sapper William Blanchard is one of the latest victims of the conflict. The 39 year-old academic was helping to clear roadside bombs left by the Taliban two months into his tour of duty with the 101 (City of London) Engineer Regiment when he was gunned down by a sniper.

He held a double honours degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in biomedical pharmacology and leaves behind widow Suzanne, son Tom and daughter Lucy. Hundreds of mourners are expected to turn out for his funeral at Portsmouth Cathedral tomorrow.

SOURCE





I'm no supporter of this war, but I despair at the BBC's denigration of Britain's troops

On Monday evening, BBC1 broadcast a shocking hour-long drama called Accused by the writer Jimmy McGovern. It depicted the British Army in Afghanistan as a brutish, corrupt and dysfunctional institution.

The programme has provoked more than 200 complaints from the public. It has also attracted the wrath of various senior military figures, including the former Chief of Staff, General Lord Dannatt, who is so outraged that he has called into question the BBC’s role as a public service broadcaster.

Last week the head of the Army, Sir Peter Wall, begged to no avail that the film be dropped. Lord Dannatt says the programme suggests that the Army in Afghanistan is rife with bullying, that alcohol is consumed by soldiers fighting on the front-line, that there is no chain of command to enforce justice, and that cover-ups are normal. This is undoubtedly the picture the drama portrays.

For those who did not see Accused, let me summarise the story. It concerns two working-class friends, Frankie and Peter, who join the Army after a brush with the law. They are spared a custodial sentence so that they can fight in Afghanistan, only one of many implausible plot twists.

Peter, though naturally brave, is too frightened to fight. He is picked on by a psychotic corporal, who describes him as a ‘faggot’ and calls him a ‘bitch’, throws buckets of excrement at him, and makes his life so miserable that the poor man is finally driven to killing himself. Frankie is reluctantly drawn into the bullying of his friend.

Corporal Buckley effortlessly convinces the authorities that Peter was killed in battle, and his body is returned to Britain along with the myth that he died as a hero. Eventually a distraught Frankie ‘grasses’ on the mad Corporal, only to find his complaints are unheeded. He decides to kill him, and the drama ends with his being sent down for 25 years.

There is no mercy in this Army. No officer ever appears to enforce justice. The men are cowed by the psychotic corporal, and a crooked sergeant is complicit. There is not a single redeeming feature to Army life. Peter’s father, a former soldier, remembers the Army as a brutal and lawless organisation. That is how it is.

Let me say that my greatest criticisms are not directed at Jimmy McGovern. He is an able Left-wing playwright, naturally much overpraised in fashionable circles, who has a political agenda. He evidently dislikes the Army and abhors our involvement in Afghanistan. On the latter point I happen to agree with him.

My quarrel is not so much with him as with the BBC for broadcasting a drama representing fictional soldiers in the most heinous light at the very time that real soldiers are risking their lives in Afghanistan — and when, according to the commander in Helmand province yesterday, they should be bracing themselves for more carnage. The make-believe soldiers are either nasty or too weak to stand up to injustice, with the exception of Frankie. Afghans are treated as sub-humans.

I do not doubt, of course, that bullying goes on in the Army, possibly on a widespread scale. For example, the deaths of four soldiers at Deepcut Barracks suggest there is a problem. But Mr McGovern’s account of a uniformly nasty Army, in which there is not a single decent person in authority, is extreme to the point of lunacy. And the timing is deeply cruel. If I had a son, brother, husband, father or any other relative fighting in Afghanistan, I think I might weep over this film. If I were fighting there, I might despair, so great is the travesty of the truth that Accused presents.

However futile and misguided the cause — as I happen to believe it is — our servicemen in Afghanistan are risking their lives for their country.

It seems to me, from what I have seen of the Army, that soldiers on the front-line generally look after one another. Exposure to danger brings out selfless and honourable qualities, which are absent in this bleak and cynical drama.

Should we care? It is, after all, only fiction. But stories are powerful instruments on the human mind, which is no doubt why Mr McGovern writes them. Accused offers an account of what is going on in Afghanistan and, for all its intermittent plot absurdities, it asks to be taken seriously as the truth.

Interviewed on the Today programme yesterday morning, Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision, took refuge in the silly defence that it was only ‘fiction’. How Mr McGovern must have chuckled. Her argument might conceivably have been justified were she talking about a film set at some distant or imaginary time.

But Mr McGovern chose deliberately to stage his drama now, in Afghanistan, where real British soldiers are risking their lives, because he is a political writer making a political point.

If it were only make-believe, as Jana Bennett ludicrously suggested, there would have been no need at the end of the programme for the BBC to advertise its Helpline for people who were upset by the issues raised by the drama. It was potentially disturbing precisely because it purported to be rooted in reality.

Which explains why, after the programme had finished, some people Tweeted their shock or surprise that the Army in Afghanistan could be behaving in this way. They may be naive and credulous, but so are those who write letters to characters in The Archers. Even bad art seeks to convince the most sophisticated that it is true.

I don’t believe Ms Bennett is a wicked woman. She is a characteristic specimen of the cosseted, woolly-thinking, metropolitan types running the BBC who have no notion of what it is to risk one’s life as a soldier, and no understanding and little concern for those who are doing so. It appears not to have occurred to her that families of soldiers, or servicemen themselves, might be distressed by the drama — or, if it did, she doesn’t care.

But the sheer, callous irresponsibility of the BBC does take one’s breath away. And also its double standards.

It is fashionable in Leftist or liberal circles to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so any drama that depicts those conflicts in a discreditable light can find itself on television even while our troops are still risking their lives

By contrast, when the ­supposedly Right-wing playwright Ian Curteis wrote a play about the Falklands War, which ­portrayed the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in a favourable light, the BBC refused to broadcast it for 20 years even though it had commissioned it. We can be certain there wouldn’t be any rush to broadcast a play favourable to our servicemen in Iraq or Afghanistan if someone were bold or imaginative enough to write one.

By the way, Accused was the second of a six-part series by Mr McGovern put out by the BBC, though thankfully the only one about the Army.

For all its faults, the BBC is a great national institution. Shame on it for providing a platform for the undermining of another great national institution, for colluding in a lie about it, and for depicting our soldiers as beasts or weaklings when they deserve our support and respect.

SOURCE






What world does this guy live in?

The Australian writer of Greek origin below argues that multiculturaliam has been "suffocated" though some vaguely defined lack of support. Since any criticism of multiculturalism was long branded as "racist", it seems to me that the exact opposite actually took place: Multicultuaralism received an oppressively large (and hence probably counterproductive) amount of support.

As with so many of these discussions, however, he appears blinded by the conventional Leftist assumption that all men are equal and that all groups are therefore equal too. The fact is that both people and groups are different, not equal (except perhaps in some religious sense). So it is not multiculturalism in general that is the problem but rather certain cultures -- crime prone Africans and Lebanese Muslims in particular. Nobody has any problem with such manifestations of multiculturalism as Lithuanian folk dancers

His whole logical problem is overgeneralization. Because Greeks and Italians have fitted in well, he assumes that (say) Africans will too -- a totally evidence-free assumption. Has he heard of the rates of crime, welfare dependency, educational failure and mental illness among blacks in Britain, for instance?

Sitting in the Norrkoping campus of the Linkoping University, Sweden, southwest of Stockholm, I am overwhelmed with a sense of wonder that the sun has begun setting at 1 pm. It will be dark by 3.30.

Though a clear, sunny day, snow is forecast for this evening and there is a type of cold that would make most Australians shiver.

In the corridors here, one of the central topics of conversation amongst staff and students is the rise of the far right, anti-immigration party – the Sweden Democrats – that received 5.7 percent of the votes and gained 20 seats in Parliament. Their motto, “responsible immigration policies” for Sweden is, according to one of my colleagues here, a euphemism for limiting Muslim migrants.

Many Swedes are in disbelief that such a party would take hold and it is a conversation that I join in carefully. In these discussions they proudly talk of the liberal attitudes reflected across the country: yes, there are problems, they say, but we all know what happens when you start signalling one minority group.

This rise of the Swedish right reflects a trend that is occurring across Europe riding on the back of anti-immigration rhetoric: Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary and Germany. Reading the tealeaves of her own demise, German Chancellor, Angela Merkal, to announce that ‘multiculturalism has utterly failed’. This echoes former Prime Minister, John Howard’s declaration that ‘multiculturalism has gone too far’ and that the Anglo-sphere needs to be proud of it achievements.

So, is multiculturalism dead and must it be killed off before we can be proud of ‘our’ achievements?

The answer is no on both fronts, In fact, multiculturalism could be more vibrant and alive than ever, it is just that it is slowly being suffocated through neglect and, to put it bluntly, outright lies.

To understand my position, let’s begin by with what multiculturalism actually is: it simply refers to the concept that several different cultures (rather than only one) can coexist peacefully and equitably. [Many can but will they all?]

Migration studies show us that when people arrive in a country, they tend to be attracted to where other recognisable migrants are. As such, Italians coming to Sydney in the 1950s where attracted to Leichhardt and Greeks (in the 1960s) to Marrickville. As time passes, the children of migrants tend to blend into the various other cultures, including the dominant one, and move on.

This is what we have seen happen and will continue to happen. In fact, the children of most migrants want nothing more than to be part of the broader culture – something their parents support because this is exactly why they come to the new country.

Yes, there will always those who resist this, but does this mean that we throw out a policy that has served us well? That would be ridiculous. Think of it this way, there are those who refuse to accept that passive smoking creates health problems – do we abandoned our anti-smoking laws?

Multiculturalism has served us well. Australia has developed into a complex and vibrant society and we have all benefited from it: from the everyday cultural enjoyment of food, music, theatre and dance, to the economic connections that have been built, and the way we are better equipped with dealing with challenges.

So if things are so great, why am I arguing that multiculturalism is being suffocated?

Multiculturalism succeeds for various reasons including an egalitarian approach (that is, giving migrants equal rights), support from major parties and adequate funding of services for migrants. So, for multiculturalism to work, we need to invest into the people arriving as well as in those who are already here. We need to make sure that there is sufficient infrastructure, housing, education and politicians willing to stand up to misinformation.

Anti-immigration parties have emerged because many of these aspects of our society have been neglected. If we combine this with a specific globalisation agenda that focuses on competition rather than cooperation, the world appears unstable and many of us feel neglected. It is easy for this sense of instability to be blamed towards outsiders arriving.

In addition, entire industries have been left to die – such as manufacturing. This is not the fault of migration – but follows the abandoning of any real industrial policies.

Thirdly, we have major political parties that seem to be courting the anti-immigrant sentiment rather than confronting them. Recently, Tony Abbott has been using both the population debate and the refugee boats as a way to deliver an anti-immigration method – hardly surprising given most of his policies where developed under John Howard.

Julia Gillard and the ALP have failed to respond in any meaningful way: seeming to be satisfied in letting Abbott set the agenda.

Declaring multiculturalism dead will not solve any of our problems – it will simply create new ones.

In 1996, Pauline Hanson declared that ‘Asians’ would swamp us? It has not happened.

Forty years before that we were worried about communists would swamp us. Now, when someone declares their support for communist ideals they are considered ‘cute’.

Today we seem to be focussed on the entire Muslim population as potential terrorists who are not ‘fitting in’ and will soon, you guessed it, ‘swamp us’.

It has nothing to do with multiculturalism failing – and much to do with politicians taking advantage of dissatisfaction of their own policy weaknesses to focus attention elsewhere.

SOURCE





British State worker wins £500k in a decade of claims against her bosses...as wounded hero has to fight for just £46,000

One is a former equalities officer who has made complaints ranging from sexual harassment to victimisation. The other is a hero soldier who was shot in Iraq.

Yet while Pauline Scanlon has been awarded £500,000 during a decade of successive claims for damages, Corporal Anthony Duncan is fighting to keep hold of £46,000 he received in compensation for his injuries.

Mrs Scanlon has won four separate payouts after accusing employers of discrimination or sexual harassment. The 46-year-old, who now works for the Department for Work and Pensions, lodged her first complaint against public sector employers in 1995. Her latest payout of £450,000 followed a claim she launched in 2005 but was only agreed last week after a series of appeals.

Meanwhile, Corporal Duncan, of the Light Dragoons, is facing legal action from the Government after it appealed against a decision to increase his compensation from £9,250.

In Mrs Scanlon’s latest settlement Redcar and Cleveland Council was told to pay her £442,466.38 after she complained of sex discrimination, victimisation and unfair dismissal. The award includes more than £100,000 for loss of earnings, £155,000 for future loss of earnings, £87,000 pension loss, £21,000 injury to feelings and £20,000 in aggravated damages.

Mrs Scanlon, who lives in Saltburn, North Yorkshire, with her retired husband, joined the council in October 2002 as its £25,000 a year equalities officer. But she was sacked two years later for refusing to co-operate and for having a poor working relationship with colleagues. She was accused of being an equalities ‘zealot’ and ‘unhelpful’.

In one incident, Mrs Scanlon was said to have complained about a colleague’s calendar which showed Robbie Williams with his trousers round his ankles. Mrs Scanlon claimed it breached council policy relating to unwelcome sexual advances. But she claimed she was only sacked after complaining that the council had breached its own policy by appointing a human resources manager without first advertising the post.

She told a tribunal that after submitting her complaint, her bosses carried out a campaign of harassment against her. She was ‘excluded from meetings’ and her ‘efforts were undervalued’, she said. After five years and various appeals, the original decision to award her £450,000 was upheld last week.

In a statement released by her union, Unison, Mrs Scanlon accused Redcar and Cleveland council of destroying her career. ‘The council abused its power, ruined my reputation and sabotaged my attempts to find another job,’ she said.

A spokesman for the council said it was ‘surprised’ at the level of compensation for loss of earnings and believes it could set a precedent for pay-outs across local government.

The case comes as figures reveal tribunal payouts at an all-time high. The total awarded to claimants rose to £35million last year, up from £26.4million the previous year.

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 or 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 November, 2010

Propaganda fail: The youth of England are rather conservative

And that good ol' drift from Left to Right is already showing up during their teenage years. The blizzard of Leftist propaganda they get in school and from the BBC doesn't seem to have had much influence. One reason could be that Britain has a large range of very conservative and widely circulated newspapers: Daily Telegraph (highbrow), Daily Mail and Daily Express (middlebrow), Sun (lowbrow) -- so everybody has access to the full range of political thought. The Sun in particular (a Murdoch publication) is the biggest-selling daily paper and probably ensures that conservative attitudes percolate throughout British society.

School pupils in England have less tolerant attitudes to immigration, and are less interested in news than their international peers, a study finds. The research showed a hardening of attitudes on immigrants, jail sentences and benefit payments as students in England got older.

The National Foundation for Educational Research also found that English pupils' knowledge of the EU was poor. But it found that regular citizenship classes could raise civic involvement.

The final report from The Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study, showed a mixed picture of the civic engagement, attachment, understanding and attitudes of young people in England.

The research tracked the attitudes of some 24,000 pupils over nine years, as they aged from 11 to 18. It showed that over time, the cohort experienced a hardening of attitudes towards refugees and immigrants, jail sentences and benefit payments. It also showed their trust in politicians declined. [Excellent! That's the very foundation of conservative thought]

The researchers also compared the attitudes of English teenagers with those of their international counterparts. This revealed that English pupils had attitudes which were "broadly democratic and tolerant", the study said. But "their tolerance of immigration is well below the international average and their view of European migration is particularly critical," the researchers said.

English pupils had a "low" level of interest in social and political issues, the study found.

The report's authors noted that this is an international trend, but that English young people had a level of news media interest significantly below the international average.

Pupils in England scored significantly above average in the international test of civic knowledge and understanding when compared to all participating countries. But when compared only to their European counterparts, their performance was average.

Their knowledge of the European Union was significantly below that of other pupils in Europe, with English pupils scoring the worst on many questions of all 24 member states that took part in the study. Pupils in England had a strong sense of national identity, which outweighed their sense of European identity.

The research also showed a weakening of English pupils' attachment to their communities at local, national and European level, although their attachment to their school communities remained strong. Trust in social, civil and political institutions also remained high, although 33% reported in the latest survey that they do not trust politicians "at all" - up from 20% at age 11.

The findings indicated that when citizenship education learning is delivered in slots of more than 45 minutes per week on a regular basis, it can improve young people's chances of positive involvement in civic activities. It also suggested that this can lead to young people feeling more able to make a difference to their communities.

Citizenship became compulsory for pupils aged 11 to 16 in September 2002 and a GCSE is available in the subject. In the citizenship classes, young people learn about democracy and justice, the structure of political systems and how to function in that structure.

Pupils in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland were not included in the study.

SOURCE






Briton to challenge judgement of Twitter airport bomb threat 'joke'

A man who was convicted and fined for tweeting that he planned to blow up an airport will take his case to Britain's High Court in a test of the limits of free speech on the internet, his lawyers said Monday.

Attorneys for Paul Chambers said prominent human rights lawyer Ben Emmerson has been instructed to lead the legal challenge to Chambers' conviction.

Chambers, a 27-year-old trainee accountant, was arrested in January after he posted a message on Twitter saying he would blow Robin Hood Airport in northern England "sky high" if his flight, due to leave a week later, was delayed.

Chambers insisted it was a joke. But a judge found him guilty of sending a menacing message over a public telecommunications network and ordered him to pay a 385 pound ($621) fine plus legal costs. Earlier this month another judge rejected Chambers' appeal.

The verdict caused a wave of outrage on Twitter, with thousands of supporters retweeting Chambers' message with the tag "I Am Spartacus" — a reference to the 1960 movie epic in which the titular hero's fellow rebels all assume his identity in a gesture of solidarity.

SOURCE






Why does Britain turn a blind eye to these medieval zealots peddling lessons in hate?

By Dr Taj Hargey

Tolerance is one of the ­abiding characteristics of British ­society. It is the reason that this country has been able to cope so ­successfully with unprecedented ­immigration and social change in ­recent decades. But sadly, this tradition of openness is being ruthlessly exploited by the ­followers of a radical strain of Islam that has emerged from the deserts of Arabia.

Tribalist and dogmatic, these Saudi zealots stir up division and threaten our social ­harmony with their attachment to a crass interpretation of the creed that is a throwback to the barbarities of a medieval age. Known as Wahhabism, this toxic brand of fundamentalism is being propagated ­throughout Muslim communities across Britain.

The young are particular ­targets for indoctrination by the hardliners, as was revealed last night in a BBC ­Panorama documentary which ­highlighted the insidious influence of a large network of Saudi ­weekend schools. There are more than 40 such schools in Britain, inculcating more than 5,000 pupils with the warped values of ­Wahhabism.

Misogyny, separatism and ­bigotry are all key features of the ­teaching in these ­institutions, whereas the Western tradition of free thought and open debate is completely ignored. That is why I, as a Muslim scholar and community leader, regard these schools as so ­dangerous. They are anathema to everything that our ­pluralistic society stands for, and should have no role in the education of impressionable minds.

It is also unfortunate for mainstream Muslims that ­Wahhabism has maligned Islam and has come to define the ­public perception of my faith — even though it has no real basis in the teaching of the Koran and is little more than ­primitive tribal code.

Precisely because Wahhabism ­originated in the brutal ­backyard of Saudi Arabia, it should have no place in ­modern democratic Britain. Our ­culture has gone to considerable lengths to promote equality for women, gay people, ethnic minorities and diverse faiths.

In contrast, the authoritarian ­Wahhabi tradition in Saudi Arabia is infused with ­intolerance. The oppression of women there, for instance, is notorious. They are not ­permitted to drive, nor are they allowed to travel unaccompanied by a male relative.

Now, thanks to these schools, this sort of misogynistic ­nonsense is being taught to young Muslims in Britain. ­Similarly, the grotesque Saudi dress code ranging from the headscarf, the hijab to the full all-enveloping tent-like burka, is now all too familiar on the streets of England — when there is no Koranic ­justification for this.

In the same vein, anti-Semitism is rampant in Saudi Arabia from the top down, reflected in everything from the institutionalised hatred of Israel to the portrayal of Jews as ­monkeys and pigs in newspaper cartoons. Vicious prejudice against gays is also rife, ­sanctioned by the Wahhabi ­clerics. The death penalty is the price paid by gays for any expression of their sexual identity. All in all, life for a woman, gay man or Jew in Saudi Arabia is pretty intolerable, devoid of freedom and rights. And this is the world that the Islamic weekend school preachers want to recreate in Britain!

The same spirit of savagery is found in the way Sharia law is implemented in Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabis run a regime where women are executed for suspected adultery and the most cruel punishments are meted out against petty criminals. But this pitiless approach owes nothing to the Koran. For example, in Saudi Arabia, ­first-time offenders such as thieves often have a limb cut off — yet the Koran states that such amputations should be used as an extreme last resort, only against the incorrigible.

Equally repellent is the utter domination by Islam of all ­public life. There is not a shred of ­pluralism allowed by this ­corrupt authoritarian regime and Islam is upheld without compassion. So-called ‘morality police’ walk the streets, enforcing their jaundiced interpretation of Sharia law.

The sentence of death hangs over anyone who dares to ­challenge the Wahhabi theocracy. Apostasy — the act of converting to another faith — is treated as a capital offence. Even those Muslims who fail to conform to the strict tenets of Wahhabism are treated as ­heretics, liable to imprisonment or execution.

There is a huge element of hypocrisy about the propagation of Wahhabism in Britain, as hardline Muslim regimes are utterly intolerant of any other faith. It is impossible to build a Christian church in Saudi ­Arabia, yet the same ideologues constantly demand the right to build mosques in Britain. They want the privileges here that they refuse to accord other faiths when they are in control.

Why do we have to put up with the soundtrack of ­grievance from these Saudi extremists, endlessly demanding mosques, halal meat, calls to prayer, ­special schools, ­gender segregation, removal of Christian ­symbols and ­imposition of a tribal dress code?

But perhaps the most ­disturbing feature of the ­weekend schools is how they serve as a gateway to extremist theology and political radicalism. This ultimately paves the way to domestic terrorism.

The dogma they promote is permanently hostile to the state in which we live — leading to a dangerous ‘them and us’ ­mentality, making a mockery of all attempts at real integration and tolerance. It is no coincidence that since Wahhabism gained a hold on British ­Muslims, especially on university ­campuses and in mosques, the threat of terror has intensified.

So why is Britain turning a blind eye to these schools and the wider sinister influence of Wahhabism? It’s all the more extraordinary given the tough stance we have taken against Islamic extremism in Afghanistan.

There is something obscene about having British soldiers die in the fight against the ­Taliban while allowing ­fundamentalist propaganda to flourish in our midst. Of course, the reason for this disparity can be summed up in one word of three letters: oil.

Britain is reliant on Saudi Arabian energy supplies and that is why we kowtow to them. Oil is also one of the key ­reasons why Saudi Arabia has gained such an unhealthy ­influence in the Islamic world, powering the growth of this kind of poisonous fundamentalism, in Britain as much as anywhere else.

Although the Saudi embassy yesterday tried to distance itself from the row about the weekend schools, we should have little doubt that the Saudi regime has assisted with ­funding them.

Furthermore, it is telling that Britain’s most famous and prestigious mosque, at Regent’s Park, in London, is inextricably linked to the Saudi ­government and the Wahhabi clergy. The head of the mosque, Ahmad Dubyan, is in the Saudi ­diplomatic service and reports back to the country’s monarch in Riyadh.

The other prime reason for Saudi’s growing domination of global Islam is that the nation contains the two most holy places in the faith: the mosques at Medina and Mecca.

At the festival of Hajj, now held in late autumn, three million pilgrims descend on Mecca, providing a huge ­captive ­audience for Wahhabism. Armed with Saudi propaganda and contentious Wahhabi Korans — in which all the verses about tolerance and pluralism have been struck out — these devotees return to their ­homeland to spread the word.

The row over these weekend schools should make us remember that the rise of extremism has been a disaster for British society and ­moderate Muslims. Social cohesion has been undermined. Integration has been thwarted. Distrust has grown among neighbours.

These problems can be addressed only by Muslims embracing the true pluralist ethos of the Koran: chapter 2, verse 22, which declares that all believers of any faith will achieve salvation if they lead good lives in anticipation of the day of reckoning.

That is the predominant sentiment we should be teaching our children — not the twisted theology of the Saudis and the Wahhabis.

SOURCE






Australia: Punters cancel bookings, abuse jockey club staff over homosexual race day

Why the favoritism? Why not just have a PEOPLE'S day, as was always done in the past?

AN Australian Jockey Club has faced a backlash over its decision to run a gay and lesbian raceday. The South Australian club is catering for a crowd of 5000 at Adelaide's Morphettville this Saturday, for its inaugural Pink Diamond Day.

But several regular racegoers will boycott the event, run in conjunction with the gay and lesbian Feast Festival.

SAJC chief executive Brenton Wilkinson told The Advertiser yesterday trackside diners had rung to cancel bookings, specifically stating they did not approve of the event. SAJC staff have also received abusive phone calls and "outraged" emails from members.

"We're disappointed some people have taken offence that we have got involved with a large festival that has been here successfully for 13 years, " Mr Wilkinson said. "One guy rang up and abused the girls in sales and said we shouldn't be supporting 'poofters' and things like this - that it's not proper. "It's hard to know what to say to people, but attendance is not compulsory and people can make their own choices."

An email to the club, seen by The Advertiser, suggests former champion sprinter Apache Cat should be promoted as the main attraction for the day and not "a bunch of ***pushers and others dressed in pink". The writer adds "you've lost this homophobic for the day" and argues "Adelaide is not like Sydney in the gay stakes".

Feast Festival general manager David Waylen said: "We don't go out of our way to make defamatory comments when they hold straight racedays, so I don't understand this attitude. "The SAJC is arguably the most conservative sporting group in SA and we thought it was a huge coup for us to establish a partnership," he said.

Mr Waylen said that despite the reaction of some, Adelaide was becoming more "gay-friendly" than 10 years ago and sees the arrangement with the SAJC as "win-win". "We're looking to be more mainstream and engage with the wider community, and the Jockey Club gets to diversify its target audience," he said.

"Queer people's money is as good as everybody else's and we, as a community, are no different to others. "These kinds of events allow us to get out of the closets, the back alleys and the basements of Adelaide." [Rubbish. South Australia had a popular homosexual Premier -- Dunstan -- for many years. His homsexuality was not publically acknowledged but it was widely known and obvious in a variety of ways. The Premier's residence is a long way from back alleys]

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 or 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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22 November, 2010

Christmas overtime pay axed after British bosses say it discriminates against other religions

A chain of care homes is refusing to pay its staff overtime this Christmas – claiming that it would discriminate against other religions. The firm said it had an ‘ethical belief in equality’ which means it cannot favour Christmas over ‘other religious festivals’.

Staff were told that it would only pay bonuses for bank holidays, which rules out Christmas Day and Boxing Day this year because they fall at the weekend.

One member of staff said: ‘We have learned that senior head office management have decided that all staff who work on Christmas Day and Boxing Day will be paid standard, flat-rate wages with no bonuses whatsoever. ‘The management themselves are on two weeks’ annual leave. It has come as a shock and left us all stunned.

‘Due to the nature of the work we expect to work festive times and give up our own time with our families knowing we are giving time, care and support to those who are unfortunate enough to need to live in care homes. ‘But for the management to deem that we do not deserve some sort of bonus, like the majority of other employees at this time of year, is not a reflection of their mantra of care and support in the community. It obviously excludes their own staff.’

Mick Green, senior human resources manager for Guinness Care and Support, said that it was company policy not to pay extra to staff working at Christmas. He said: ‘We would like to make our position on pay clear. We have a strong ethical belief in equality and diversity and are unable to recognise one religious festival over others. ‘Our policy is not to pay extra when staff work during a religious festival.

‘We would like to stress that many of our office-based staff will also be working over the Christmas period in order to support staff in our homes during this busy time.’

Mr Green said there was a statutory responsibility to recognise bank holidays, and people working on Monday, December 27 and Tuesday, December 28, would receive extra pay as outlined in their contracts.

Guinness Care and Support runs more than 20 residential homes across Devon looking after hundreds of elderly men and women.

Exeter Labour MP Ben Bradshaw said that he would be contacting Guinness Care and Support for a more comprehensive explanation of the company’s position. He said: ‘I am surprised at their stance. We are still an overwhelmingly Christian society and Christmas is a religious festival and a public holiday. ‘Other religious festivals are not public holidays and I do not think Guinness is comparing like with like.’

Hugo Swire, Conservative MP for East Devon, added: ‘I can give you my reaction in one word – bonkers.’

Sarah Austin, an employment expert at Foot Anstey solicitors, in Exeter, said: ‘Unless there is a contractual provision to the contrary, employers aren’t actually obliged to pay more than the standard rate of pay to employees who work on Christmas Day or Boxing Day. ‘But they will sometimes exercise their discretion to do so in the interests of maintaining good relations with their employees.’

SOURCE




BBC broadcasting a show written by a Leftist that portrays the army as sadistic brutes

The BBC is refusing to pull a controversial TV drama which shows a culture of bullying among troops in Afghanistan.

The head of the army has written to the corporation’s director general Mark Thompson expressing dismay over BBC1 programme Accused, which shows a young soldier being brutalised before taking his own life.

Sir Peter Wall, the Chief of the General Staff, said in a letter to the broadcaster’s top boss that the drama was ‘deeply offensive’ and ‘distasteful’ to those serving in Afghanistan and also to their families. It is understood that he had also indicated that it would be his preferred option if the programmme, penned by left wing writer Jimmy McGovern, were dropped. His letter comes after other former military figures such as Colonel Tim Collins have also condemned the programme as insensitive.

But last night the BBC were insisting they had no plans to remove the programme from the schedules and said it was going ahead as planned. It claimed it was clear that the drama was a work of fiction and was in no way an attempt to ‘denigrate’ service men and women.

Mr McGovern said it was not his intention to ‘slur’ British soldiers and that the drama was about his belief in ‘the sanctity of life’.

But a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: ‘The view of the Chief of the General Staff is that this programme is deeply offensive to all those serving. ‘There are fears that those watching it will believe this is what is really happening to their loved ones. ‘We have asked the BBC to make it clear that this is a fictitious programme, is not accurate and that the Army has nothing to do with making it.'

The BBC has confirmed that Mr Thompson had received a critical letter from Sir Peter and had responded. But it has refused to release the Director-General’s reply.

The controversial second episode of the six-part drama, which airs tonight at 9pm, stars Mackenzie Crook as a bullying corporal. The programme shows his character singling out a weak soldier he calls ‘the bitch’ In one scene a barrel of human excrement thrown over a victimised soldier.

Writer McGovern is the Bafta-winning TV dramatist whose credits include Cracker and The Street.

Speaking before the row flared up, Crook said taking on a fictional portrayal of soldiers during an ongoing conflict was 'a very serious matter'. He said: ‘I can’t begin to comprehend what these guys go through - it’s a job that takes guts and courage. ‘I feel lucky that I was never in any real danger and just doing make-believe.’

The drama has already faced criticism from Gulf War veteran Colonel Tim Collins, who gained worldwide fame for his eve-of-battle address to his men in the Royal Irish Regiment during the Iraq conflict.

He criticised the episode for its ‘generous lashings of gratuitous violence’ and ‘constant and slightly contrived use of foul and abusive language’, telling the Radio Times the drama ‘abjectly fails’ the ‘responsibility test’ and ‘fails the soldiers on the front line’.

Reacting to what they fear will be the negative impact of the drama the MoD sent out an official Army briefing note on Friday criticising the drama and stressing that bullying would not be tolerated. These kind of notes, displayed on noticeboards at all bases at home and abroad, are normally reserved for guidance on operational matters.

A BBC Spokespesman said: ‘In the promotion of this new drama series by award winning writer Jimmy McGovern, it has been made clear that ‘Accused’ is a work of fiction. It is in no way an attempt to denigrate the service men and women of the British army. '

Jimmy McGovern, the show’s writer said: ‘This episode is a work of fiction and as a dramatist I was in interested in exploring how soldiers have to be at a certain mindset to kill. It is not my intention to slur British soldiers, for whom I have the greatest respect. At the heart of the drama is my belief in the sanctity of life.’

SOURCE




He's ignorant, cruel and un-Christian. But don't expect the spineless Church of England to banish Bishop Pete

"His Grace" is obviously full of hate -- unsurprising in such a Left-leaning church

For those who despair that the Church of England has progressed beyond satire, along comes a joke bishop to ram the point home. The Bishop of Willesden, Pete Broadbent, has ­predicted on his Facebook page that the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton will last for only seven years.

This was because the young couple were, he declared, ‘shallow ­celebrities’ and the Royal Family full of ‘philanderers’ with a record of ­marriage break-ups — notably the divorce of ‘Big Ears and the Porcelain Doll’, ­otherwise known as Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Such remarks were unbelievably crass, spiteful and stupid. How on earth can this absurd churchman purport to know how long William and Kate’s ­marriage will last?

Does he perhaps have a professional sideline reading the tea-leaves at church fetes?

He may not care for the hoopla around the impending nuptials; but to call William and Kate ‘shallow celebrities’ surely only reveals the shallowness of his own mind.

For he has no idea whether they are ­shallow or deep. All he knows is how the media represent them.

Yet on that basis he gratuitously insulted their characters. And his remarks about Prince William’s parents amounted to no more than cruel and infantile name-­calling.

Yet look at the feeble way Lambeth Palace has responded to this diatribe, declaring that the bishop was ‘entitled to his views’.

Well actually, no he is not. As a bishop of the Church of England, anything he says has the imprimatur of the Church.

These were sour, offensive, hurtful remarks which by themselves therefore risk bringing the Church into disrepute.

But this wasn’t all he said. In a previous Twitter entry (and isn’t there something more than faintly ludicrous and unseemly about a cleric aged 58 calling himself ‘Bishop Pete’ and who burbles ­incontinently on Twitter and Facebook?) he tweeted: ‘Need to work out what date in the spring or summer I should be ­booking my ­republican day trip to France.’

The remark then appeared on his ­Facebook page, provoking the question: ‘Isn’t the Queen your boss?’

To which Bishop Broadbent replied: ‘I am a citizen, not a subject!’— adding ­elsewhere, for good measure, that the hereditary basis of the monarchy was ­‘corrupt and sexist’.

Now all this takes the bishop’s remarks onto a different plane altogether. For he was not just shooting his mouth off over the ‘national flimflam’ of the wedding.

He was not just being offensive about members of the Royal Family. Nor was he just embarrassing his immediate ­superior, the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, who also happens to be a close confidant of Prince Charles.

He was also effectively denying the ­constitutional position of the Church of England — and indeed, similarly ­repudiating his own undertakings as a bishop of that Church.

For the monarchy and the Church of England are umbilically linked. The Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church — as will be Prince William when he inherits the Crown — and the monarch is pledged to defend the faith which that Church represents.

Moreover, when he was ordained into the Church of England, Bishop Broadbent will have sworn ‘true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors, according to law, so help me God’.

So did he falsely swear an oath in which he didn’t believe at the time? Or does he no longer believe it, making him a ­hypocrite who should depart the Church whose vow of loyalty he now rejects?

And when he ordains priests in turn, how can he require them to swear ­allegiance to an institution he regards as ‘corrupt and sexist’?

It would seem to many scarcely credible that a bishop can be so ignorant and — well, so un-Christian. But alas, it is only too credible given the recent record of this Church.

After all, the Archbishop of ­Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams loses no opportunity to apologise for just about everything the Church has done.

Instead of providing a bulwark against the secular onslaught upon the Judeo-­Christian values which form the bedrock of this society, the Church has been in the forefront of appeasing ideologues of every stripe who are intent upon destroying ­family, morality and nation.

This supine and suicidal cultural cringe has developed remorselessly from a loss of faith by the Church in its own supernatural story, a process going back to the ­middle of the 19th century if not before.

As it came to believe that the Bible was no more than a kind of fairytale, the Church filled the vacuum it was creating by turning itself into a branch of social work at home and cheerleader for radical ‘liberation theology’ abroad. It thus lined itself up with the Third World and ­Marxists at home and abroad, often taking their part against the West.

Far from shoring itself up, as it so vainly hoped, the Church not only found itself as a result with empty pews but ­proceeded to tear itself apart over divisive issues such as women priests and homosexuality.

It is not surprising that the Pope chose Britain for the warning he delivered on his recent visit that ­Christianity needed urgently to rediscover its voice and resist the tide of secularism which was threatening to take the West back to a dark age of irrationality, intolerance and even fascism.

What’s really striking is that Benedict XVI, so thoughtlessly excoriated as the ultimate reactionary, has now shown a ­measure of tactical ­adroitness quite absent from the Church of England.

It has emerged to ­general astonishment that he has written in a new book that the use of condoms might be justified in certain ­circumstances, such as preventing the spread of HIV and Aids.

Such a softening of his ­previously apparently unshakeable opposition to all forms of contraception is surely calculated to help garner support for a Catholic creed he fears may be ­crumbling, taking Christian Europe with it.

By comparison, the Church of England remains paralysed by a political ­correctness which threatens to spell its destruction. This in turn threatens the nation. The decline of the Church has already helped undermine and enfeeble Britain’s values and its sense of itself, leaving it ­undefended against a series of destructive ideologies.

And the more these values have been eroded, the more the Church has allowed itself to be sucked into a vortex of appeasement, giving increasing ground to the ­secular dogma which ultimately will destroy it — and with it Britain’s historic identity.

The fact is that the fates of monarchy, Church and nation are inextricably linked. Which is why Prince William’s marriage is important, as is his commitment to defend the faith of this nation when he becomes King.

But if the Church that is the vehicle for that faith itself repudiates the monarchy, then Britain’s historic identity will finally fade away.

Which is why, to demonstrate that Bishop Pete is merely a rogue cleric, the Church might perhaps do well to conclude that his manifold, er, talents are simply wasted on this country. What a kindness it would be to appoint him instead to an Anglican see somewhere that is not groaning under the yoke of monarchy.

Congo, perhaps, or Korea, or Yemen. No shallow royal ‘flimflam’ there, for sure. So come on, Lambeth — release Bishop Pete from his misery in ‘fawning, deferential’ Britain. Send him to a third world tyranny where he would discover just what ‘fawning, deferential’ behaviour really amounted to.

Willesden’s loss — which it would bravely bear — would surely be his (and the nation’s) gain.

SOURCE





Homosexual marriage demands should be left on shelf

By Christopher Pearson, commenting from Australia -- where there is some agitation from the Green/Left for homosexual marriage to be legalized

THE most obvious thing about arguments for same-sex marriage is their shallowness.

IN last Saturday's Focus, Paul Kelly wrote a memorable piece, taking issue with Labor senator Mark Arbib's suggestion that it's time for the ALP to support gay marriage.

"Why is it time?" Kelly asked. "Because the Greens are stealing Labor's votes, that's why. So Labor should cynically abandon its support for the foundational social institution, a move that will trigger a deeply polarising debate and brand Labor indelibly as a libertarian personal rights party ready to ditch any institution or principle. In the process, Labor will alienate permanently an important section of its base."

Kelly's analysis was in marked contrast to that of The Age's political editor, Michelle Grattan. She told ABC Radio National's Breakfast show this week that Julia Gillard would have to change tack on the subject, preferably sooner rather than later.

Mind you, she was talking to the show's presenter, Fran Kelly, whose agenda on same-sex issues is well known, and to some extent may have been framing her remarks accordingly.

Grattan's argument is the same sort of vulgar inevitabilism that she, Paul Kelly and the press gallery at large displayed on the outcome of the republican referendum. But Kelly at least has more of a feel for the values of blue-collar workers in the outer suburbs. As he says, Arbib's push to change the law on marriage "testifies to how politicians can be fooled by opinion polls and miss the bigger picture".

The most obvious thing about the arguments in support of same-sex marriage is their shallowness. The best Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young could manage last week was to remind us breathlessly that we are living in the year 2010, as though that settled the matter. The Greens' line that all loving couples deserve to be treated equally is just as specious.

Few have argued more consistently over many years than I have done that same-sex partners should get a fair deal on superannuation and other entitlements of that kind. Labor's reforms in the last parliament mean that couples are treated pretty much equally except in the matter of marriage.

But the few remaining privileges reserved for matrimony are there for sound, practical reasons.

Men and women tend to have different needs and priorities when they enter a mature sexual relationship.

Most men are not naturally disposed to be monogamous, for example. One of the purposes of marriage is to bind them to their spouses and children for the long haul and to give the state's approval to those who enter such a contract and abide by its terms.

Another of the purposes of marriage is to affirm that parenthood is a big, and in most cases the primary, contribution a couple can make, both to their own fulfilment and the public good.

It follows that societies which want to sustain their population size, let alone increase their fertility level, should positively discriminate in favour of stable, heterosexual relationships and assert the preferability of adolescents making a normal transition to heterosexual adulthood.

It should be obvious to unprejudiced observers that, while there are plenty of well-adjusted gays who manage to lead satisfying and productive lives, rational people do not of their own volition choose to be homosexual.

It should be equally obvious that those who, through whatever mixture of nature and nurture, end up at whatever age identifying as homosexual, bisexual or whatever, need to be protected from any kind of persecution.

Among the reasons the Greens are so keen on same-sex marriage is that they want to reduce the population and drive down national fertility. Their refusal to discriminate positively in favour of heterosexuality and uphold the distinctive value of normal marriage shows their political project yet again for what it is: a dead end.

Speaking of dead ends, some American bishops have recently given a persuasive account of why same-sex marriage has come to look like a modest reform. They put it down to a culture where contraception and abortion are so widely practised that the crucial differences between a fertile couple, a couple childless by choice and a gay couple have been largely obscured and each partnership is seen as morally equivalent. They also lay some of the blame on a UN version of entitlement, in which marriage could be reduced to an unqualified abstract right.

The blue-collar social conservatives of the outer suburbs inhabit a less theoretical world. They are often unapologetically tribal in outlook and their best hopes are often invested in their children.

Most parents on low wages routinely make sacrifices on their kids' behalf in ways middle-class couples seldom do these days. There is also still something self-sacrificial among many of them on marriage: the notion that it's hard work much of the time but worth the effort.

There is another core constituency, sometimes overlapping, who have been critical to Labor's victories in the past two elections. I'm talking about not just the Christian vote but the votes of people who are adherents of all the main, organised religions.

Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists all take the institution of marriage very seriously. As things stand, Labor can normally count on a fair share of those people's votes. However, the electoral implications of giving them a faith-based reason for voting for the Coalition are obvious.

Perhaps Arbib should look beyond the Galaxy polling commissioned by an advocacy group, Australian Marriage Equality. A sample of 1050 found, after a prompt-question on gay marriage being introduced overseas, that 62 per cent supported changing the law.

Another 33 per cent were opposed and 5 per cent were unsure.

The Greens in triumphalist mode have claimed more support for their cause than these figures warrant.

Far more substantial polling comes from Roy Morgan's Single Source face-to-face surveys, which reach more than 50,000 people each year. His data uses proxy questions: Do you think homosexual activity is immoral and are you in favour of gays getting adoption rights?

Attitudes vary widely, of course, between the regions and the inner and outer suburbs, which is why Galaxy's 62 per cent in favour should be treated with caution.

The strongly negative territory included most of regional Queensland, traditional Labor turf comprising three western Sydney seats (Blaxland, Chifley, McMahon), three more in Sydney's southwest (Barton, Banks, Watson), some parts of suburban Melbourne (Lalor, Hotham, Bruce) and the north Tasmanian seats of Bass and Lyons.

Running the risk of alienating so much of your traditional support base, at this stage in federal Labor's history, is daylight madness. At least Gillard seems to have grasped that fact.

SOURCE. (Note: Christopher Pearson is himself homosexual)

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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 or 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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21 November, 2010

Sharing, not equality, is the human norm

I excerpt below an academic paper that takes a fair bit of concentration to follow but which is, I think, of fundamental importance. Its thesis is that charity (e.g. welfare payments to the poor) springs from a basic human instinct but that instinct is neither altruism nor a belief in equality. It is an instinctive expectation of reciprocity. In other words, we give to others in the instinctive expectation that we will get something back. We put resources into the common pot in the expectation that everyone else will do likewise. In modern societies that expectation is often violated, with welfare recipients giving nothing back. That offends our basic expectation of reciprocity and feels wrong. Hence there are periodic attempts made to get the poor to work for their welfare payments or to get them off welfare altogether

So the Leftist opposition to welfare reform is founded -- once again -- on a denial of basic human instincts. Despite their cloak of good intentions, Leftists are profoundly anti-human. They hate the world about them and that mostly means the people in it

Is equality passé? We think not. The welfare state is in trouble not because selfishness is rampant (it is not), but because many egalitarian programs no longer evoke, and sometimes now offend, deeply held notions of fairness--notions that encompass both reciprocity and generosity but that stop far short of unconditional altruism towards the less well-off. Recasting egalitarianism to tap these sentiments should be high on the agenda of those who worry about the human toll being taken by poverty, inequality, and insecurity in the United States and in the world.

The US public remains deeply committed to helping those in need. A 1991 ABC/Washington Post poll found that twice as many people were "willing to pay higher taxes" to "reduce poverty" as were opposed. In 1995, 61 percent expressed willingness to pay more taxes to "provide job training and public service jobs for people on welfare so that they can get off welfare." Almost three quarters of those surveyed by Time in 1991 agreed (more than half of them "completely") with the statement: "The government should guarantee every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep."

Many also think, however, that policies to pursue these objectives are either ineffective or unfair. In a 1995 CBS/New York Times survey, for example, 89 percent supported a mandated work requirement for those on welfare. It is thus not surprising that egalitarian programs have been cut even in the face of increases in measured inequality of before-tax and -transfer income. For the most part voters have responded to the cuts with approval rather than resistance.

Egalitarians now defend their programs on moral and empirical grounds that many people, even among the less well-off, find uncompelling. In the face of a hostile public, some egalitarians have soured on what they consider to be a selfish electorate that identifies with materialistic middle-class values and is indifferent to the plight of the less fortunate.

We believe this pessimism is fundamentally misdirected. It misunderstands the opposition to egalitarian programs and the powerful sentiments behind it. It is not self interest that opposes the welfare state, nor unconditional generosity that supports it. We will show that there is a solid foundation for cooperation and sharing in two basic human motives--we call them strong reciprocity and basic needs generosity. Moreover, we argue that hostility to contemporary forms of egalitarianism is evidence for, not against, that deep foundation, and that new egalitarian initiatives are fully compatible with it.

Understanding the predicament of egalitarian politics today thus requires a reconsideration of Homo economicus, the unremittingly selfish prototype whose asocial propensities have provided the starting point for deliberations on constitutions and policies from Thomas Hobbes to current debates on welfare reform. We do not wish to replace this textbook figure, however, with a cardboard-cutout altruist, an equally one-dimensional actor willing to make contributions to others no matter the personal cost. While such motives may seem admirable to some, we doubt that unconditional altruism can explain the success of the welfare state, nor its absence explain our current malaise. In experiments and surveys people are not stingy, but their generosity is conditional.

Moreover, they distinguish among the goods and services to be distributed, favoring those which meet basic needs, and among the recipients themselves, favoring those thought to be "deserving." Strong reciprocity and basic needs generosity better explain the motivations that undergird egalitarian politics than does unconditional altruism. By "strong reciprocity" we mean a propensity to cooperate and share with others similarly disposed, and a willingness to punish those who violate cooperative and other social norms--even when such sharing and punishing is personally costly. We call a person who acts this way Homo reciprocans. Homo reciprocans cares about the well-being of others and about the processes determining outcomes--whether they are fair, for example, or violate a social norm. He differs in this from the self-regarding and outcome-oriented Homo economicus. We see Homo reciprocans at work in Chicago's neighborhoods, in a recent study that documented a widespread willingness to intervene with co-residents to discourage truancy, public disorders, and antisocial behaviors, as well as the dramatic impact of this "collective efficacy" on community safety and amenities.1

Homo reciprocans is not committed to the abstract goal of equal outcomes, but rather to a rough "balancing out" of burdens and rewards. In earlier times--when, for example, an individual's conventional claim on material resources was conditioned by noble birth or divine origin--what counted as balancing out might entail highly unequal comfort and wealth. But, as we will see, in the absence of specific counter-claims, modern forms of reciprocity often take equal division as a reference point.

We do not wish to banish Homo economicus, however. The evidence we introduce shows that a substantial proportion of individuals consistently follow self-regarding precepts. Moreover most individuals appear to draw upon a repertoire of contrasting behaviors: whether one acts selfishly or generously depends as much on the situation as the person. The fact that Homo economicus is alive and well (if often in the minority) is good news, not bad, as people often rely on asocial individualism to undermine socially harmful forms of collusion ranging from price-fixing to ethnic violence. Pure altruists also doubtless exist and make important contributions to social life. In short, egalitarian policy-making, no less than the grand projects of constitutional design, risk irrelevance if they ignore the irreducible heterogeneity of human motivations. The problem of institutional design is not, as the classical economists thought, that selfish individuals be induced to interact in ways producing desirable aggregate outcomes, but rather that a mix of motives--selfish, reciprocal, altruistic and spiteful--interact in ways that prevent the selfish from exploiting the generous and hence unraveling cooperation when it is beneficial.

The strong reciprocity of Homo reciprocans goes considerably beyond the outcome-oriented motives that define Homo economicus. We call these self-interested forms of cooperation "weak reciprocity." Examples include market exchange and cooperation enforced by "tit-for-tat" behavior--what biologists call "reciprocal altruism." Such actions are costly to the giver but still self-interested because they involve the expectation of future repayment. Strong reciprocity, like the biologists' concept of altruism, imposes costs on Homo reciprocans without prospect of repayment. Yet unlike the vernacular usage of "altruism," it is neither unconditional nor necessarily motivated by good will towards the recipient.

Students of cultural and biological evolution have long wondered how individually costly but socially beneficial traits such as altruism might evolve in competition with genetically and economically rewarded selfish traits. Like altruism toward strangers, strong reciprocity thus represents an evolutionary puzzle, one that we will seek to unravel. But first we will show that Homo reciprocans is indeed among the actors on today's political stage, and most likely has been for the last hundred thousand years.

The Legacy of 100,000 Years of Sharing

Aside from unconditional altruism, there are two distinct reasons why people might support egalitarian policies. First, many egalitarian programs are forms of social insurance that will be supported even by those who believe they will pay in more than their expected claims over a lifetime. Consider unemployment, health insurance, or other social programs that soften the blows during the rocky periods that people experience in the course of their lives. Even the securely rich support ameliorating the conditions of the poor on prudential, that-might-happen-to-me grounds.

Assuming people are broadly prudent and risk-averse, then the insurance motive is consistent with conventional notions of self-interest. The second reason for supporting egalitarian programs, in contrast, is not fundamentally self-regarding: egalitarianism is often based on a commitment to what we are calling "strong reciprocity." It is little surprise that people are more generous than economics textbooks allow; more remarkable is that they are equally unselfish in seeking to punish, often at great cost to themselves, those who have done harm to them and others. Programs designed to tap these other-regarding motives may succeed where others that offend underlying motivational structures have been abandoned.

Both historical and contemporary experimental evidence support this position. Consider first the historical evidence. In his Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt, Barrington Moore, Jr. sought to discern if there might be common motivations--"general conceptions of unfair and unjust behavior"--for the moral outrage fueling struggles for justice throughout human history. "There are grounds," he concludes,

for suspecting that the welter of moral codes may conceal a certain unity of original form . . . a general ground plan, a conception of what social relationships ought to be. It is a conception that by no means excludes hierarchy and authority, where exceptional qualities and defects can be the source of enormous admiration and awe. At the same time, it is one where services and favors, trust and affection, in the course of mutual exchanges, are ideally expected to find some rough balancing out.2

Moore termed the general ground plan he uncovered "the concept of reciprocity--or better, mutual obligation, a term that does not imply equality of burdens or obligations." In like manner, James Scott analyzed agrarian revolts, identifying violations of the "norm of reciprocity" as one the essential triggers of insurrectionary motivations.3

One is tempted to consider strong reciprocity a late arrival in social evolution, possibly one whose provenance is to be found in Enlightenment individualism, or later in the era of liberal democratic or socialist societies. But this account does not square with overwhelming evidence of the distant etiology of strong reciprocity. The primatologist Christopher Boehm finds that

with the advent of anatomically modern humans who continued to live in small groups and had not yet domesticated plants and animals, it is very likely that all human societies practiced egalitarian behavior and that most of the time they did so very successfully. One main conclusion, then, is that intentional leveling linked to an egalitarian ethos is an immediate and probably an extremely widespread cause of human societies' failing to develop authoritative or coercive leadership.4

And anthropologist Bruce Knauft adds:

In all ethnographically known simple societies, cooperative sharing of provisions is extended to mates, offspring, and many others within the band. . . . Archeological evidence suggests that widespread networks facilitating diffuse access to and transfer of resources and information have been pronounced at least since the Upper Paleolithic . . . The strong internalization of a sharing ethic is in many respects the sine qua non of culture in these societies.5

Far from being a mere moment in the history of anatomically modern humans, the period described by Knauft and Boehm emerges roughly 100,000 years before the present and extends to the advent and spread of agriculture 12,000 years ago. In short, it spans perhaps 90 percent of the time we have existed on the planet.

More HERE





Liberty-Loving Latinos Outshine Loud-Mouthed Leftist Latinos

Hispanics owe a debt of gratitude to African Americans for showing us what allegiance to the Democrat Party can bring

by Chris Salcedo

If the presidency of Barack Obama was responsible for the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community, then the 2010 midterm elections may go down as the event that changed America’s perception of the Hispanic community. Thanks to hardcore leftist elected officials and high-profile Hispanic activists, America has held the view that all Latinos believe in law breaking, open borders, and the importation of Latin American socialism into the United States. These liberals have tried to follow the template set up by the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. It goes something like this: Anoint yourself the leader of a minority community by perpetuating victimhood and government reliance. And then take your voting bloc and sell your community down the river in exchange for a seat of power at the Democrats’ table. There was only one problem with the plan; Hispanics didn’t want to give up on the American dream just yet. Not the left’s DREAM Act — the actual American dream.

One of the best results of the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community was the surge of Latinos elected to high office in the 2010 elections. Marco Rubio will be the next senator from Florida. Republican Brian Sandoval will be Nevada’s first Latino governor. Susana Martinez is the newly elected GOP Latina who replaces a liberal Hispanic governor in New Mexico. Bill Flores beat Pelosi rubber stamp Chet Edwards in Texas’ 17th district. And while we’re in the Lone Star State, Quico Canseco defeated Ciro Rodriguez. Bear in mind that Rodriguez is one of those Latinos whose values are more in line with Fidel Castro than an American congressman. These are just a few examples of Latinos — over six million voted in the 2010 midterms — flexing their conservative muscles and making their views known through conservative representatives.

I’ve long held that Hispanics owe a debt of gratitude to African Americans. They, more than any group, have shown us what allegiance to the Democratic Party can bring: the disintegration of the African American family, the targeting of black mothers for abortions by left-wing groups like Planned Parenthood, the lowering of the bar for African American students in state-sponsored schools. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Oddly enough, I have the Reverend Al Sharpton to thank for my current view. Back in 2003, when the good reverend was seeking the Democratic nomination for president, he said this: “We must no longer be the political mistresses of the Democratic Party.” It was a rare moment of honesty and admission that he and compatriot Jesse Jackson may have made a mistake in taking the African American community down the road of victimhood, represented by the Democrats, instead of the road of empowerment, represented by the conservative wing of the GOP. Sharpton’s words changed my life. I was bound and determined that my family, any Hispanics that would listen, and I would never become victims and reliant on an all-powerful government for our existence. But I knew I had powerful forces aligned against me. I saw many leftist Latinos seeking to take the Hispanic community down Sharpton’s road of victimhood.

Take your pick of any Latino hate group. La Raza, Nation of Aztlan, the Brown Berets — these are the anti-American groups that have sullied the reputations of all Latinos. They get a lot of press. But they’re not alone. Groups like LULAC, Border Angels, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and countless others have made it their mission to portray Latinos as a bunch of victims who need to be compensated for some slight perpetrated by white America. They shout slogans like, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.” They fly Mexican flags on the streets of America to protest adherence to the law. They protest semantics, calling anyone a hate monger who dares call those that break the law “illegal immigrants.” It’s all part of a well-coordinated campaign to blur the lines between American Latinos and those that enter the United States without permission. The idea is to make citizen Latinos invested in those who break U.S. law to come here. And it has been wildly successful. Many first-generation Hispanics still regard illegals, from any Latin-American country, as “their people.” But the veil of deception perpetrated by the aforementioned leftist groups has begun to lift.

There are a couple of reasons for the weakening of the leftists grip over the Hispanic community. The large lurch left shoved down America’s throats by elected liberals is one reason. Since Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama took the reins of power, Americans of all ethnic stripes have been treated to a front row seat of unvarnished liberal socialism. The Hispanic community had a different reaction from other minority groups. The fracture is a result of the common denominator shared by most Hispanics. Many have fled or had ancestors who fled countries where leftists stifled prosperity and ground the human spirit to dust. It was the primary reason that Hispanics fled their home countries to live in a land of individual freedom. Latinos with any historical perspective took one look at the “axis of socialism” represented by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi and recoiled in disgust. The second big reason is generational. Fewer and fewer Hispanics feel any fidelity to the nations of their “roots.” They are, in short, Americans. They love the fact that they live in a country that was founded on the premise that “we the people” rule. A government “of, by, and for” the people is simply better than governments from nations like Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, and Cuba. To these “liberty-loving Latinos,” the voices saying they represented the Hispanic community turned out to be leftist apologists who sought to import the same policies that many Hispanics fled from in the decades prior. The liberal, loud-mouthed, leftist Latinos are not able to contain the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community. The conservatives are organizing.

In past articles I’ve talked at length about the various conservative Latino groups that are springing up all over the country. From the Conservative Hispanic Society to Amigos De Patriots, Hispanics that reject leftist thought are finding a home and a voice. Another group is the The Americano. This is Newt Gingrich’s Hispanic partnership web site. It has long been my view that liberal Latinos are so adamantly against Hispanics learning English because they’re afraid that Hispanics will begin to think for themselves as a result. Many leftist Latinos want to control the information that Spanish speakers get. This is illustrated in many of the so-called Spanish language “news” sources here in the U.S. For the most part these sources are the Spanish equivalent to MSNBC, biased, liberal and unfair. The Americano is dedicated to making sure that Latinos have all the facts and perspectives so they can make up their own minds. This December, The Americano is holding its first Hispanic forum. The Americano celebrates the vibrant and rich traditions of Hispanic heritage. It strives to give Latinos who believe in traditional Hispanic values a voice. This forum will be the first of many that will acknowledge Hispanics’ role of strengthening, not destroying, Western civilization. Hispanics will come together in united purpose and launch one of the first battles for the heart and soul of the Hispanic community.

Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” The forces of liberalism have sought to change what makes America “good.” And they will not give up their power easily. The battle has been joined. The phrase “we’re taking our country back!” — though cliché in recent years — still is the best description of the conflict. Now, Hispanics are pledging to defeat leftist thought and polices that have done so much to enslave countless millions, douse the flame of liberty, and kill the human spirit. Some Latinos operate from first-hand knowledge of the destructive power of liberalism. Others are educated in world events and have no desire to sell-out their children’s shot at the American dream. Whatever their reason, they are here to fight. They are here to fight because there’s no place else to go. If America falls the way of countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico, there is no other beacon of freedom on Earth to run to.

SOURCE





Liberty-Loving Latinos Outshine Loud-Mouthed Leftist Latinos

Hispanics owe a debt of gratitude to African Americans for showing us what allegiance to the Democrat Party can bring

by Chris Salcedo

If the presidency of Barack Obama was responsible for the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community, then the 2010 midterm elections may go down as the event that changed America’s perception of the Hispanic community. Thanks to hardcore leftist elected officials and high-profile Hispanic activists, America has held the view that all Latinos believe in law breaking, open borders, and the importation of Latin American socialism into the United States. These liberals have tried to follow the template set up by the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. It goes something like this: Anoint yourself the leader of a minority community by perpetuating victimhood and government reliance. And then take your voting bloc and sell your community down the river in exchange for a seat of power at the Democrats’ table. There was only one problem with the plan; Hispanics didn’t want to give up on the American dream just yet. Not the left’s DREAM Act — the actual American dream.

One of the best results of the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community was the surge of Latinos elected to high office in the 2010 elections. Marco Rubio will be the next senator from Florida. Republican Brian Sandoval will be Nevada’s first Latino governor. Susana Martinez is the newly elected GOP Latina who replaces a liberal Hispanic governor in New Mexico. Bill Flores beat Pelosi rubber stamp Chet Edwards in Texas’ 17th district. And while we’re in the Lone Star State, Quico Canseco defeated Ciro Rodriguez. Bear in mind that Rodriguez is one of those Latinos whose values are more in line with Fidel Castro than an American congressman. These are just a few examples of Latinos — over six million voted in the 2010 midterms — flexing their conservative muscles and making their views known through conservative representatives.

I’ve long held that Hispanics owe a debt of gratitude to African Americans. They, more than any group, have shown us what allegiance to the Democratic Party can bring: the disintegration of the African American family, the targeting of black mothers for abortions by left-wing groups like Planned Parenthood, the lowering of the bar for African American students in state-sponsored schools. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Oddly enough, I have the Reverend Al Sharpton to thank for my current view. Back in 2003, when the good reverend was seeking the Democratic nomination for president, he said this: “We must no longer be the political mistresses of the Democratic Party.” It was a rare moment of honesty and admission that he and compatriot Jesse Jackson may have made a mistake in taking the African American community down the road of victimhood, represented by the Democrats, instead of the road of empowerment, represented by the conservative wing of the GOP. Sharpton’s words changed my life. I was bound and determined that my family, any Hispanics that would listen, and I would never become victims and reliant on an all-powerful government for our existence. But I knew I had powerful forces aligned against me. I saw many leftist Latinos seeking to take the Hispanic community down Sharpton’s road of victimhood.

Take your pick of any Latino hate group. La Raza, Nation of Aztlan, the Brown Berets — these are the anti-American groups that have sullied the reputations of all Latinos. They get a lot of press. But they’re not alone. Groups like LULAC, Border Angels, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and countless others have made it their mission to portray Latinos as a bunch of victims who need to be compensated for some slight perpetrated by white America. They shout slogans like, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.” They fly Mexican flags on the streets of America to protest adherence to the law. They protest semantics, calling anyone a hate monger who dares call those that break the law “illegal immigrants.” It’s all part of a well-coordinated campaign to blur the lines between American Latinos and those that enter the United States without permission. The idea is to make citizen Latinos invested in those who break U.S. law to come here. And it has been wildly successful. Many first-generation Hispanics still regard illegals, from any Latin-American country, as “their people.” But the veil of deception perpetrated by the aforementioned leftist groups has begun to lift.

There are a couple of reasons for the weakening of the leftists grip over the Hispanic community. The large lurch left shoved down America’s throats by elected liberals is one reason. Since Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama took the reins of power, Americans of all ethnic stripes have been treated to a front row seat of unvarnished liberal socialism. The Hispanic community had a different reaction from other minority groups. The fracture is a result of the common denominator shared by most Hispanics. Many have fled or had ancestors who fled countries where leftists stifled prosperity and ground the human spirit to dust. It was the primary reason that Hispanics fled their home countries to live in a land of individual freedom. Latinos with any historical perspective took one look at the “axis of socialism” represented by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi and recoiled in disgust. The second big reason is generational. Fewer and fewer Hispanics feel any fidelity to the nations of their “roots.” They are, in short, Americans. They love the fact that they live in a country that was founded on the premise that “we the people” rule. A government “of, by, and for” the people is simply better than governments from nations like Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, and Cuba. To these “liberty-loving Latinos,” the voices saying they represented the Hispanic community turned out to be leftist apologists who sought to import the same policies that many Hispanics fled from in the decades prior. The liberal, loud-mouthed, leftist Latinos are not able to contain the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community. The conservatives are organizing.

In past articles I’ve talked at length about the various conservative Latino groups that are springing up all over the country. From the Conservative Hispanic Society to Amigos De Patriots, Hispanics that reject leftist thought are finding a home and a voice. Another group is the The Americano. This is Newt Gingrich’s Hispanic partnership web site. It has long been my view that liberal Latinos are so adamantly against Hispanics learning English because they’re afraid that Hispanics will begin to think for themselves as a result. Many leftist Latinos want to control the information that Spanish speakers get. This is illustrated in many of the so-called Spanish language “news” sources here in the U.S. For the most part these sources are the Spanish equivalent to MSNBC, biased, liberal and unfair. The Americano is dedicated to making sure that Latinos have all the facts and perspectives so they can make up their own minds. This December, The Americano is holding its first Hispanic forum. The Americano celebrates the vibrant and rich traditions of Hispanic heritage. It strives to give Latinos who believe in traditional Hispanic values a voice. This forum will be the first of many that will acknowledge Hispanics’ role of strengthening, not destroying, Western civilization. Hispanics will come together in united purpose and launch one of the first battles for the heart and soul of the Hispanic community.

Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” The forces of liberalism have sought to change what makes America “good.” And they will not give up their power easily. The battle has been joined. The phrase “we’re taking our country back!” — though cliché in recent years — still is the best description of the conflict. Now, Hispanics are pledging to defeat leftist thought and polices that have done so much to enslave countless millions, douse the flame of liberty, and kill the human spirit. Some Latinos operate from first-hand knowledge of the destructive power of liberalism. Others are educated in world events and have no desire to sell-out their children’s shot at the American dream. Whatever their reason, they are here to fight. They are here to fight because there’s no place else to go. If America falls the way of countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico, there is no other beacon of freedom on Earth to run to.

SOURCE






Unstoppable social worker evil in Britain

In 43 years of medical practice, said the family’s GP, he had “never encountered a case of such appalling injustice”. To their neighbours, it was so shocking that up to 100 of them were ready to stage a public protest, until being banned from doing so by social workers and the police.

This was the case of Tony and Debbie Sims, which I first reported in July 2009 under the headline “'Evil destruction’ of a happy family”, and whom I can now name because their daughter, torn from them for no good reason, has finally, after three years of misery in foster care and 74 court hearings, been adopted.

The story of Mr and Mrs Sims was my first introduction to that Kafka-esque world of state child-snatching which I have so often reported on since. It illustrates so many of the reasons why, hidden behind its self-protective wall of secrecy, this ruthless and corrupt system has become a major national scandal.

Until April 2007, Mr Sims, a professional dog breeder, and his wife, then a branch vice-chairman of the local Conservative Party, were a respectable middle-class couple living happily with their five-year-old daughter, who was the apple of their eye. Shortly after Mr Sims was interviewed by the RSPCA over his unwitting infringement of a new law banning the tail-docking of puppies, their home was invaded by two RSPCA officials and 18 policemen, who had been given a wholly erroneous tip-off that there were guns on the premises.

When the dogs were released from their kennels and rampaged through the house, ripping apart his daughter’s pet boxer, Mr Sims strongly protested – verbally but not physically. He and his wife were arrested and taken away, leaving their little girl, aged five, screaming amid the chaos. Social workers were called and the child was removed into foster care. While Mrs Sims was being held for several hours in a police cell, she had a miscarriage. She returned home that night to find her daughter gone.

When the couple next saw their child – months later, at a “contact” – she said she had been told they were dead and had gone to heaven. For three years they tried to get her back through those 74 court hearings. The social workers claimed the child had been maltreated, because her home was an unholy mess. But this was only because of the police raid and the dogs – a WPC who had visited the house a month earlier on other business reported that it had been “neat and tidy”.

The child could not understand why she was not allowed to go back home with her parents. The courts were unable to consider a report by an experienced independent social worker which the couple were told described them as responsible and loving parents. The only evidence the court heard was that from the social workers and their own “experts”.

When the couple were eventually told that their child would be adopted, they appealed. In a judgment last year, which the media were permitted to report, Mr Justice Boden ruled that because the parents had not shown sufficient co‑operation with the authorities (after four psychiatric assessments of the couple, the father refused to submit to a fifth), the adoption had to go ahead.

One of the first people to contact the parents when this was made public was that independent social worker, who expressed astonishment, saying he had assumed that, because the social workers’ case seemed so flimsy, the family would have long since been reunited. Last week, however, Mr and Mrs Sims had a two-sentence note to say their daughter has now been adopted.

Since I first wrote about this case in 2009, I have come to recognise many of its features in dozens of others I have followed: the mob-handed involvement of the police; the seizing of children for no good reason; the inability of social workers to admit they have made a mistake; the way lawyers supposedly acting for the parents seem to be on the other side; the refusal of judges to look objectively at all the evidence, and their willingness to accept nonsense if told to them by social workers and their “experts”. Too often, these proceedings get away with standing every honourable principle of British justice on its head.

Such is the Frankenstein’s monster created by Parliament in the 1989 Children Act. Yet apart from the tireless John Hemming, and a handful of other MPs shocked into awareness by individual cases in their constituencies, the majority seem wholly unconcerned. So what do we pay them for?

SOURCE





Australia: National Party deserves praise for vetoing police state

The National Party is a very conservative, rural-based party

THANKFULLY, a draconian law backed by WA's Liberal government has been thwarted. WHILE most political commentary is understandably focused on the national stage as Julia Gillard tries to hold together her loose alliance of Labor, Greens and rural independents, last week another minority government faced a split of its own. It was an important moment for good law-making in this country.

In Western Australia, the Nationals refused to support Colin Barnett's controversial stop-and-search provisions, the Criminal Investigation Amendment Bill. It was the minor party's finest hour, exposing the heavy-handed and out-of-touch willingness of the Liberal government to trample on the civil liberties of its citizens.

In this column last year, when the issue began to be debated, I wrote about the dangers of the proposed stop-and-search laws, aimed at giving police the powers to frisk anyone in certain parts of Perth without the centuries-old requirement of reasonable suspicion.

Just stop and think about that for a moment. The Liberal government in WA wanted to give police the power to frisk and search whoever they wanted: a good-looking woman, a kid who looked at them the wrong way, or a couple that for no particular reason the police officers just didn't like the look of. It is one hell of a law for a government to try and inflict on the population that elected it.

The stop-and-search bill was a ham-fisted effort by Police Minister Rob Johnson and Attorney-General Christian Porter.

Johnson is a maverick from way back. He has variously advocated crushing cars and leaving them on speeding drivers' front lawns, chemical castration for sex offenders, and the re-introduction of the death penalty. While extreme, at least none of these targets innocent bystanders, as the stop-and-search provisions would have.

But what on earth is the more rational Attorney-General doing supporting these laws? Porter studied for a masters in political philosophy at the London School of Economics. He understands the writings of 18th and 19th-century thinkers such as Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill, writings about rights and freedoms basic to Western democracies. He should hand his qualification back.

The Johnson and Porter argument is that the intention of the law isn't to do anyone harm. Rather, it is to make crime trouble spots safer. But that misses the point.

History is littered with examples of well-intentioned moves that led to unintended consequences. As the 19th-century writer Thomas Aldrich noted: "The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man." Police in WA shouldn't be put in the situation where they have such powers.

Just to be clear, the laws, had they come into effect, would have meant an innocent couple walking through the streets could be stopped simply on a police officer's whim. The woman (or man) would then receive a full body frisk, the contents of her purse could be tossed and both parties would be ordered to turn out their pockets. For doing what? Based on what suspicion of wrongdoing? Nothing and none are the answers.

It could be an older couple out for their anniversary, a woman going to church, a young couple on their first date. Anyone and everyone becomes a target.

And people wouldn't have needed to be walking through one of the no-go areas to be violated. While driving through the suburb (perhaps without the intention of stopping in the area), they could have been pulled over and subjected to the treatment outlined above, with their car being thoroughly searched as well.

If that isn't the stuff of a police state, then I don't know what is. No wonder the opposition and the Nationals refused to support the bill. It is hard to believe educated legislators could come up with such a law, much less get into a situation where the entire Liberal parliamentary party endorsed it.

Another argument used to justify the laws by their proponents is that it is no different to giving police the powers to conduct random breath tests. Apart from the fact you don't get felt up in a random breath test, there are other important differences, too. When you drive a car or take an aeroplane flight, you effectively sign a contract with the state that you will play by the road or air rules, such as being breath-tested or walking through metal detectors. But the stop-and-search provisions would have applied to anyone who simply wanted to walk on the streets. It would have been a contract with the state that no citizen could have chosen to opt out of, a contract would have allowed police to frisk you at will, unless you wanted to stay housebound for the rest of your life.

Removing the reasonable suspicion test from policing is draconian. Anyone who enjoys basic freedoms should be affronted by the Liberal government's attempt to introduce such laws, and the desire to do so by the Liberal Party leadership group should lead to more questioning about other legislative initiatives it pursues. If Barnett is prepared to do this, what else might he be prepared to do?

The Nationals took the view that the bill should be opposed on the back of an upper house committee that considered the proposal for 12 months. Despite many submissions to the committee raising concerns about the proposed laws - with the one exception: the police union (surprise, surprise) - the Liberals on the committee fell into line with the desires of their executive and recommended the bill become law.

The Labor, Greens and, most significantly, Nationals members on the committee disagreed, and Nationals MP Mia Davies managed to convince her colleagues to join her in opposing the proposed law, thereby killing it off. For that, West Australians, should be eternally grateful.

It isn't just that the laws would have violated the rights of free citizens. Overseas evidence suggests such laws don't work anyway.

Britain trialled similar laws to deal with terrorism. But it's terror law watchdog, Lord Carlile QC, found them "poor and unnecessary". In 2008, British police used the powers on 170,000 occasions without one conviction, but with many complaints registered.

That's what happens when people are stopped without reasonable suspicion: citizens lose confidence in the state and the state doesn't improve its policing, because it isn't targeted.

WA has dodged a policy bullet, but the public should never forget what their government tried to do to them.

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 or 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 November, 2010

This week's false rape claim from Britain


Jailed for 18 months

A young woman who had ambitions of becoming a glamour model falsely accused a man of raping her as part of a ‘wicked’ scam to clear her £3,000 drug debt. Samantha Merry, 21, claimed that she had been sexually assaulted by the man in a brutal attack which allegedly happened in front of a group of people.

Her victim was arrested in front of his partner and their children at 4am and driven to a police station where intimate swabs were taken and he was held in a cell for 23 hours. He remained on bail for 15 weeks with the threat of a lengthy jail term hanging over him while officers investigated the allegations.

Merry, of Great Baddow, near Chelmsford, Essex, is believed to have made up the allegation after her drug dealer offered to cancel the debt if she took action against the man because he had a grudge against him. It was only after CCTV footage came to light that proved the man could not have attacked Merry that he was cleared, Chelmsford Crown Court heard.

Merry, an office junior, admitted perverting the course of justice and was jailed for 18 months yesterday.

Judge Anthony Goldstaub, QC, told her: ‘Your motivation was entirely for your financial benefit in exchange for the victim’s imprisonment. ‘As a result, your victim’s life became the stuff of which nightmares are made. He remained under suspicion and on bail, expecting prosecution and fearing imprisonment for this crime.’

Judge Goldstaub told her that her lies could stop genuine rape victims coming forward for fear they would not be believed.

The court heard that Merry claimed she was attacked on March 3 this year. She made a detailed 13-page statement, leading to a case that cost Essex Police thousands of pounds, including 235 man hours and £3,700 on forensic tests.

CCTV footage later revealed that she had lied and on June 14 she was arrested. Richard Stevens, prosecuting, said: ‘She said she had a drugs debt of £3,000 involving crack cocaine. The dealer had told her to accuse the victim of rape and it was her hope that doing so might wipe her debt.’

Paul Donnegan, defending, said his client had no previous criminal record and had suffered abuse in the street since she admitted to lying. But the judge turned down pleas to spare her prison, saying it was a ‘careful and wicked deception’. He added: ‘Some might say if you try to send someone to prison for five or six years you really deserve to go to prison yourself. The effect on the victim is appalling. It was premeditated and mercenary.’

Merry uses the nickname Sexy Sam on her Myspace page on which she writes: ‘Before I met my boyfriend I wanted to get in to some kind of modeling [sic]’.

After the case, Chief Inspector Joe Wrigley said: ‘Justice has been done and I hope it serves as a warning to anyone who would want to make a false allegation.’

SOURCE





Major Jewish Group Defends Beck Amid Soros Furor‏

Nice to see a Jewish group stand up for a conservative for once

The national Jewish group Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has come out strongly against Jewish leaders critical of Glenn Beck’s recent George Soros expose, which detailed his actions during the Holocaust, calling such criticism of Beck “painful, troubling and disquieting.”

“ZOA has expressed its concern over the strong criticism that a number of American Jewish leaders and other prominent Jews in recent days have directed at Fox broadcaster, Glenn Beck, for his criticism of Israel/U.S.-basher, financier George Soros, regarding his behavior in Nazi-occupied Budapest in 1944,” the group says in a statement released Tuesday.

In a three-part series on Beck’s Fox program last week, Beck portrayed Soros as the “puppet master” behind, among other things, world financial collapses. While describing Soros, Beck told how, during the Holocaust, the 14-year-old Hungarian Jew “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off.” The “anti-Semite” was Soros’s fake grandfather, who was paid off by his real father in an effort to conceal the young Soros’s Jewish identity. He has not shown remorse or regret for those actions.

“A number of American Jewish leaders condemned Mr. Beck for these remarks,” ZOA’s statement says, “yet a 1998 interview with Soros conducted by Steve Kroft on ‘60 Minutes’ shows that Beck did not misstate the facts.”

The group goes on to detail a litany of “anti-Israel, anti-American” remarks made by Soros over the years.*

Among those who have spoken out against Beck are Elan Steinberg, the vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants; Simon Greer, the director of Jewish Funds for Justice; Jewish writer Michelle Goldberg; and Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League.

“I have seen no proof,” Steinberg has said regarding Beck’s Soros claims, while Greer said Beck “deliberately and grotesquely” mischaracterized Soros’s actions and accused him of “Holocaust revisionism.” Goldberg wrote that Beck’s series went “beyond demonizing” Soros and described the programs as a “symphony of anti-Semitic dog whistles.” And Foxman issued a statement calling Beck’s claims “unacceptable,“ ”offensive,“ and ”horrific.”

Statements like those prompted ZOA to respond.

“It is painful, troubling and disquieting to see Jewish leaders defending any actions by George Soros, someone who has shown himself to be an active antagonist of Israel and the U.S., whom he blames for the world’s troubles,” ZOA National President Morton A. Klein says in the statement.

“In light of Soros’ hatred of Israel and the United States; his continuous efforts to harm them; the absence of any subsequent remorse and feeling as an adult over the events he witnesses in Nazi-occupied Hungary as a 14-year old; as well as the fact that Glenn Beck’s comments were essentially accurate, George Soros merits no defense or sympathy from Jewish leaders,” he adds.

“We are truly puzzled that some Jewish leaders have chosen to defend this and other Israel-bashers from their critics.”

SOURCE





Diminished Capacity

If the definition of insanity is repeating the same mistake over and over again, then U.S. policymakers over several administrations should be institutionalized and relegated to padded cells.

The latest, but certainly not the last example of this craziness, is the pressure the Obama administration is exerting on Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank. A Nov. 14 New York Times story repeats the fiction accepted over many years by Republican and Democratic administrations. The proposed 90-day freeze, says the newspaper, would "break an impasse in the peace negotiations with the Palestinians."

There can be no "peace negotiations" unless the Palestinian side is prepared to compromise on its demands. But since those demands include the acquisition of all the land -- including those 1949 boundaries that in today's world would be indefensible against Israel's numerous enemies -- the very word "negotiate" is meaningless.

The United States is sending another $150 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority on top of the $400 million President Obama promised to send in June. The Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick (http://www.jpost.com/) writes about what our money is buying us: "the death penalty for any Palestinian who sells land to Jews, the confiscation of an estimated $1 million in Israeli products, including foods, cosmetics and hardware from Palestinian stores." This is the equivalent of "protection money" in the days of Al Capone, but it protects nothing except the fiction that propping up the mischaracterized "moderate" Palestinian leadership of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is going to magically deliver peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Before again forcing Israel into concessions, several fundamental questions should be posed to the Palestinians: (1) If your goal is to live in peace with Israel, why does Israel not appear on your maps? (2) In your school textbooks and on TV, why do you continue to denigrate Jews and compare them to pigs and monkeys? (3) Why are young children portrayed in videos as future "martyrs," dressed in suicide garb, guns in hand, with mock bombs strapped to their chests? (4) What agreements have you made with Israel in the past that you have kept (answer: none) and why should any future concessions by Israel be sufficient to cause you to make peace with the Jewish state, which you won't even acknowledge as a Jewish state?

All of this posturing is a fiction and, to borrow a phrase from Ecclesiastes, nothing more than "chasing after the wind." It is not -- nor has it ever been -- what Israel does or doesn't do that threatens peace in the region. It is Israel's existence that riles the Palestinians and every Muslim state. Any negotiation that does not lead to the weakening of Israel on the road to its eventual annihilation is of no interest to the Palestinian leadership. Can anyone prove that statement wrong?

The United States is playing mind games with itself and with Israel's future. This country thinks people who believe their god has ordered them to kill Jews and others they regard as "infidels" (that would be all Americans and anyone else who don't embrace Islam) can somehow be persuaded by infidel diplomats, like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (and previous secretaries of state) and politicians like President Obama (and previous presidents) to act in ways that are opposed to what they believe their god has commanded them to do. One might as well believe staunch Southern Baptists can be persuaded to drink alcohol.

A lot must change before anything approaching "peace" between Palestinians and Israelis occurs. Israel has changed and given enough. It is long past time for serious reciprocity from the Palestinian Authority. If none is forthcoming, Israel should keep building and agree to no new concessions.

SOURCE





Australia: Muslim hostility gets a just reward

Six month' jail for Muslim woman who lied about police conduct

A MUSLIM mother was sentenced to six months behind bars after falsely claiming a highway patrol officer was racist and attempted to tear her burqa from her face.

Carnita Matthews, 46, made a written complaint against the young officer, who fined her for failing to properly display her P-plates, in what a local magistrate described as a "deliberate and malicious and, to a degree, a ruthless crime".

The case sparked calls for all police cars to be fitted with video cameras after the technology was instrumental in exposing the mother of seven's lies.

It also forced a review by Corrective Services NSW, which has no policy on prisoners wearing burqas. Matthews, who refused to give evidence during her two-day hearing at Campbelltown Local Court, claimed it was a case of mistaken identity. Her lawyer Stephen Hopper even argued police couldn't prove that a burqa-clad woman who handed the sworn allegations to police was her.

Documents tendered to court revealed Matthews received help from former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib, who twice spoke to a Police Professional Standards Command senior officer on her behalf.

Senior Constable Paul Fogarty had stopped Matthews for a random breath test near her home in Woodbine, in Sydney's southwest, in June. She accused the officer of fining her because she was wearing a burqa.

Video and audio of the incident, caught by a camera in the highway patrol vehicle, showed the officer did not attempt to remove her burqa and that she started abusing him only after being issued with a fine, shouting: "You are racist. All cops are racist."

Mr Rabbidge rejected Matthews' claims she wasn't responsible for the false allegation due to the knowledge of the incident and the signature on the complaint, which matched her driver licence.

Within minutes of the decision, Mr Hopper appealed against the conviction and Matthews was granted conditional bail while the case goes to the District Court.

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 or 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 November, 2010

Prince William's forthcoming wedding good for the monarchy



The British monarch is also the Australian monarch but there are some Australians who want a republic instead

By Miranda Devine, writing from Australia

The timing of Prince William's engagement is a serious setback for the republican movement. There's no doubt he'd be a better king than his father.

THE Queen announced the news of her grandson's engagement yesterday with the following tweet - yes, tweet - on social networking site Twitter: "The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are absolutely delighted at the news of Prince William and Catherine Middleton's engagement."

It was a sign, not just that the monarchy has finally arrived in the 21st century, but that it belongs to William's generation. Twitter and Facebook, after all, are as alien to fusty 62-year-old Prince Charles as fidelity was in his first marriage.

After all his public agonies, Charles should now take the many heavy hints that have piled up over the years and sail off into the sunset with his mistress-turned-wife Camilla, leaving his far more formidable 28-year-old son to be king, and the far more appropriate Kate Middleton as queen.

Not least among the hints to Charles, first in line to the throne, is the longevity in office of his mother, the Queen, who forges valiantly on with her daily royal chores at the age of 84. Surely, if she thought her eldest son were worthy of succeeding her, she would have retired long ago to relax with her corgis.

With news of the royal engagement, the monarchy can now smoothly bypass Charles and Camilla and instead install the young, wholesome, photogenic, down-to-earth and thoroughly likeable couple as King Wills and Queen Kate.

This, of course, was the original revenge plan of William's beloved mother, Princess Diana, which she unveiled in her famous tell-all 1995 television interview with Martin Bashir on BBC's Panorama, two years before she died in a car crash in Paris.

Diana's sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring on Kate's Middleton's hand now seals the deal. "It's my mother's engagement ring," William said in a remarkably gracious television interview with his fiancee beside him, the highly recognisable ring firmly on her finger. "So I thought it was quite nice because obviously she's not going to be around to share any of the fun and excitement about all this. It's my way of keeping her sort of close to it all."

The couple appeared to be so lovely and genuinely in love, it's no wonder their news has delighted their economically troubled nation, with the Prime Minister, David Cameron, and his Cabinet reportedly pounding fists on their desks with happiness.

In Australia, meanwhile, can't you just hear the sound of republicans gnashing their teeth? "The fact that in 2010, a wedding announcement to the other side of the world between two young English people stands to impact on our own constitutional arrangements is simply absurd," the Australian Republican Movement's chairman, Mike Keating, said in a statement yesterday.

The truth is that Prince Charles was the republicans' best tool. It is hard enough in Australia to justify the existence of a foreign monarch in modern times, let alone one as kooky and flawed as Charles. It's not Charles's age that is the impossible impediment to his taking the throne. It is his track record.

Of course, many people will never forgive Camilla, whom Diana nicknamed "the rottweiler", for ruining her marriage to Charles. Even though she married her long-time lover five years ago, the opposition in the United Kingdom to Camilla becoming queen has grown, and runs as high as 90 per cent in some opinion polls.

William's engagement announcement also couldn't have come at a better time to eclipse the bad publicity that is sure to come from his father's forthcoming greenie documentary, Harmony. To be broadcast this week in the US, it is reportedly an attempt by Charles to pitch himself as a British Al Gore. It could also be seen as his last-ditch pitch for what Diana called the top job.

Charles says in the program: "I can only somehow imagine that I find myself being born into this position for a purpose - to save the planet." Billed as a call to action on climate change, the project was his idea, and comes with a book as well as a children's version.

"He felt there were a lot of urgent issues to be discussed," his co-producer, Stuart Sender, told Reuters. "He is very involved in the movie as a narrator, and on camera . . . some of the prince's projects are also featured in the film."

The timing of William's engagement announcement - made three weeks after he proposed to Kate in Kenya -- may simply be unfortunate coincidence, from Charles' point of view.

But his first response to reporters' questions yesterday was abrasive. "They've been practising for long enough," he said. Camilla said the news was "wicked". Yes, she had just come out of the musical of the same name but why would she employ a slang word used by people 40 years her junior, which has such an obvious double meaning?

SOURCE





Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard firm on homosexual marriage policy

A CHANGE of Labor policy may not be enough to persuade Julia Gillard to back gay marriage. A motion from the Greens, amended by Labor, due to be voted on in parliament this week calls for all MPs to canvass the issue of gay marriage with their local voters.

The motion has reignited debate on gay marriage, which is not supported in Labor's national platform. Left faction members and other Labor MPs have indicated their support for a conscience vote in parliament and want the platform changed at the party's national conference, expected late next year.

Ms Gillard said she had no problem with the Greens' motion passing in its amended form and for the debate to be had at the Labor national conference. "The platform is decided at the conference and the federal parliamentary Labor Party, led by me, makes decisions on how we will go about working on platform questions," Ms Gillard said. She said people were "getting way ahead of themselves" if they thought the issue could be resolved quickly.

Ms Gillard said she hoped the conference and the party would continue to talk about "the things that will determine prosperity, opportunity and equity in this country for the decades in front of us".

The Herald Sun reported former Labor leader Kevin Rudd had agreed to let MPs have a conscience vote on same-sex marriage in his second term, in a deal with key Left faction leaders, but the plan lapsed when Ms Gillard replaced him as prime minister. Ms Gillard told reporters she was not aware of the deal.

SOURCE





Private property will save Aboriginal culture, not destroy it

By Helen Hughes, Mark Hughes and Sara Hudson

Australians are fed up. Despite expenditure of vast taxpayer funds – some $5 billion annually on top of normal education and health, etc – Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in remote Australia continue to live without jobs, on welfare, and in appalling public housing. Alcoholism, poor health, and violence are the consequence.

Private Housing on Indigenous Lands, released this week by The Centre for Independent Studies, cuts through to the causes of Indigenous dysfunction – the denial of individual property rights (private home and business ownership) – on Indigenous lands. Private Housing proposes that individual landowners be identified so they can receive the benefits of their land rights rather than allow these to be wasted by land councils and other communal organisations. A kick start to private property rights is proposed by giving long-term public housing tenants the choice of taking ownership – at no cost – of their dwellings, which are often mere shacks.

In mainstream Australia, private and communal property rights are complementary. Australians can get a job, own a house, and start a business side by side with sharing communal property such as schools, hospitals, roads and parks. This two sector economy is denied to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders on Indigenous lands. By only enabling communal ownership, a communist system has been imposed on these lands.

The benefits are appropriated by a small elite – the nomenklatura – who live in nice houses, while the regime fails to deliver decent housing to everyone else. Indigenous townships are like Omsk without the snow. Most are lucky to have a single shoddy communally owned supermarket, and there are no thriving coffee shops and other businesses of country towns. Criticism of communal landownership is attacked as being ideologically unsound, not on the basis of factual evidence.

The fact is that private property rights are essential to Indigenous economic development. Without private property rights, family and social dysfunction will continue. Indigenous languages are dying out and culture is under threat. Economic prosperity will encourage a revival of Indigenous languages, literature, art, music and dance. Pride will replace despair.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 19 Dec. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.





Human Rights in the Middle East

Robert L. Bernstein

During my twenty years at Human Rights Watch, I had spent little time on Israel. It was an open society. It had 80 human rights organizations like B’Tselem, ACRI, Adalah, and Sikkuy. It had more newspaper reporters in Jerusalem than any city in the world except New York and London. Hence, I tried to get the organization to work on getting some of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly free speech, into closed societies – among them, the 22 Arab states surrounding Israel. The faults of democratic countries were much less of a priority not because there were no faults, obviously, but because they had so many indigenous human rights groups and other organizations openly criticizing them.

I continued to follow the work of Human Rights Watch and about six years ago became a member of the Middle East North Africa Advisory Committee because I had become concerned about what had appeared to me to be questionable attacks on the State of Israel. These were not violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but of the laws of war, Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law. There has been an asymmetrical war – you might call it a war of attrition in different ways involving Israel – not only with Palestinians but sometimes involving other Arab states, but of course, involving Iran and its non-state proxies Hezbollah and Hamas. In reporting on this conflict, Human Rights Watch – frequently joined by the UN – faulted Israel as the principal offender.

It seemed to me that if you talked about freedom of speech, the rights of women, an open education and freedom of religion – that there was only one state in the Middle East that was concerned with those issues. In changing the public debate to issues of war, Human Rights Watch and others in what they described as being evenhanded, described Israel far from being an advocate of human rights, but instead as one of its principal offenders. Like many others, I knew little about the laws of war, Geneva Conventions and international law, and in my high regard for Human Rights Watch, I was certainly inclined to believe what Human Rights Watch was reporting. However, as I saw Human Rights Watch’s attacks on almost every issue become more and more hostile, I wondered if their new focus on war was accurate.

In one such small incident, the UN Human Rights Commission, so critical of Israel that any fair-minded person would disqualify them from participating in attempts to settle issues involving Israel, got the idea that they could get prominent Jews known for their anti-Israel views to head their investigations. Even before Richard Goldstone, they appointed Richard Falk, professor at Princeton, to be the UN rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza.

Richard Falk had written an article comparing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews in the Holocaust. Israel, believing this should have disqualified him for the job, would not allow him into the country. Human Rights Watch leapt to his defense, putting out a press release comparing Israel with North Korea and Burma in not cooperating with the UN. I think you might be surprised to learn the release was written by Joe Stork – Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch Middle East Division – whose previous job for many, many years, was as an editor of a pro-Palestinian newsletter.

Following this, Richard Goldstone resigned as a Board member of Human Rights Watch and Chair of its Policy Committee to head the UN Human Rights Council investigation of Gaza. Human Rights Watch has been, by far, the biggest supporter of the UN Council, urging them to bring war crimes allegations against Israel – based on this report. I don’t believe Human Rights Watch has responded to many responsible analyses challenging the war crimes accusations made by Goldstone and also challenging Human Rights Watch’s own reports – one on the use of phosphorous, one on the use of drones and one on shooting people almost in cold blood. A military expert working for Human Rights Watch, who seemed to wish to contest these reports, was dismissed and I believe is under a gag order. This is antithetical to the transparency that Human Rights Watch asks of others.

After five years of attending the Middle East Advisory Committee meetings, seeing the one board member who shared my views leave the organization, another supporter on the Middle East Advisory Committee who had joined at my request being summarily dismissed, and having great doubts about not only the shift in focus to war issues but also the way they were being reported, I wrote an op-ed in The New York Times questioning these policies. To me, the most important point in my op-ed was the following: “They (Human Rights Watch) know that more and better arms are flowing into Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet, Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.”

A Human Rights Watch Board member told The New Republic that they go after Israel because it is like “low-hanging fruit.” By that, I think he means that they have a lot of information fed to them by Israel’s own human rights organizations and the press, that they have easy access to Israel to hold their press conferences, and that the press is eager to accept their reports. The organization, most would agree, was founded to go after what I guess you would call “high-hanging fruit” – that is, closed societies, where it is hard to get in. Nations that will not allow you to hold press conferences in their country. Nations where there are no other human rights organizations to give you the information.

It has been over one year since the op-ed appeared. Little has changed. For example, within hours of the flotilla incident, Human Rights Watch was calling for an international investigation pointing out that any information coming from the Israeli Army was unreliable. That was before any of the facts were known. I spent the first week of October in Israel seeking out as many different views as I could. I was privileged to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I spent a day at Al-Quds, the Palestinian university in the West Bank, with the university’s President Sari Nusseibeh, his staff, and students. I also met with NGOs including Jessica Montell of B’Tselem, passed an evening with my dear friends Natan and Avital Sharansky, and spoke with many journalists and government officials. I visited S’derot, the town most shelled by Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. I came back convinced more than ever that Human Rights Watch’s attacks on Israel as the country tried to defend itself were badly distorting the issues – because Human Rights Watch had little expertise about modern asymmetrical war. I was particularly concerned that the wars were stopped but not ended – so they became wars of attrition.

Arab People vs. Arab Governments

In talking about Arabs, I want to be clear. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 40 years of human rights work, it’s that you must separate the people that you’re talking about from their government. When a totalitarian or authoritarian government are the rulers, the people, whatever they believe, are shut down – shut down hard – and only the views of the government rule, while those with other views are imprisoned, tortured, exiled – anything to silence them.

People, I believe, are the same everywhere and I believe that, given the chance, good things can happen. I’ve learned it over and over again, starting with seeing Germany and Japan change so dramatically after a devastating war – and more recently with South Africa, South Korea and with many countries in South America.

I believe the Arab people, given the chance, would not be opting for committing genocide of Israel – as Iran, supported by Hamas and Hezbollah, does. I believe the Arab people, like any people, would opt for a better life for themselves. The great majority would want it on this earth, not in the hereafter, and I question very much whether they would want to go to war if there were any other possible way of avoiding it. We will never know until their governments allow free speech, or until human rights organizations do a better job of trying to ferret out what the people actually think, as opposed to their government.

The Rockets of Hamas and Hezbollah

It is impossible to talk about human rights in the Middle East without looking at some of the factual background. The UN passed resolution 1701 at the end of the Lebanon War, which said that Hezbollah should be disarmed. The UN sent between 12,000 and 15,000 troops who are in Southern Lebanon, near the Litani River, which is 15 miles from the border of Israel. Not only has Hezbollah not been disarmed, but it has also reportedly brought in between 40,000 and 60,000 rockets from Iran. The rockets are of much longer range and power than they had at the start of the last war and it has been reported that some may contain biological and chemical agents. These weapons are buried in homes and public buildings – all along the Israeli border. This, of course, has occurred under the eye of the UN forces.

In addition, despite the blockade, I have read that thousands of tons of arms have poured into Gaza. When President Obama was in S’derot in southern Israel, the town most targeted by Hamas rockets, he said he would not want Sasha or Malia to go to school there. I believe that President Obama is dedicated to the defense of Israel. It’s obvious to him and all of us that if there were 40,000 to 60,000 rockets on the other side of the Potomac River or the Hudson River near New York where I live, or any place where American citizens were threatened, and these rockets were in the hands of an enemy that had demonstrated it had little care about protecting its own citizens, you would not want your children to go to school there either. In fact, I question if we would want the rockets just left there on our border, opposite one of our great cities, with the enemy having the option of whether or not to use them. The fact that the UN has been unable to stop this build-up of arms, in the two places that Israel has voluntarily left, is a huge international failure. It is difficult to see how anyone can promise Israel security without addressing the situation.

It is hard for human rights organizations to do anything when war starts. Can anything be more threatening to civilian life than the thought of another war in Gaza? Shouldn’t human rights organizations be talking to the Gazans about the wisdom of their government in re-arming? Instead, there is a debate about the blockade of Gaza. The debate over the blockade and whether Israel is achieving the right balance in trying to keep Gaza livable while keeping Gaza unprepared for war is too complicated to discuss here. We do know that a ship, coming from Iran and loaded with sophisticated arms, was apprehended by Israel off the coast. Yet, many visit Gaza and call for a complete lifting of the blockade without mentioning arms. Human Rights Watch believes the blockade is illegal based on their opinion that Israel and not Hamas controls Gaza. If one believes Hamas controls Gaza, a blockade is a legal way of trying to prevent rearmament. Hamas’s irresponsible use of arms, even to the point of sacrificing its own citizens as a way to build world sympathy, is well-known. When you visit the Gaza border, the Israeli Army will give you a long list of everything that is going into Gaza and it is known that as the rocketing seems to have been contained, that Israel is trying to be more liberal. With all this happening, should a human rights organization limit the debate to a discussion of a blockade without discussing the arms build-up?

It is containing the arms build-up that is holding back the unfettered economic build-up of Gaza, which the world is so willing to help and which would create jobs. I have read that many of the youth, unable to get any other jobs, go into jihad as the only way to get money. It seems to me that, sadly, the blockade is not very effective in stopping arms. Like on the Lebanon border, their use could lead to war and the time to talk about that is now. In fact, the last war in Gaza occurred when the blockade failed to stop rockets going into Israel.

When I was in Israel, I went to the Gaza border and I learned that since the beginning of 2010, more than 11,000 patients with their escorts exited the Gaza Strip for medical treatment in Israel. Surprisingly and sadly, this policy has risks. I was told the Israelis make the Palestinians change cars at the border because cars had been rigged to explode. A woman on crutches was changing cars. She fell down. Three Israeli soldiers ran to help her get up. She blew herself up, killing the four of them. The Hamas government is preaching genocide of Israel, yet Israel is treating Gaza’s sick. It struck me as bizarre that in an asymmetric war of attrition, which we’re still learning about how to fight, a nation cares for the sick of a neighbor that is preaching genocide to its people and the only human rights comment has been that they are not doing it well enough.

Much more HERE

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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 or 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.

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



18 November, 2010

Australia: OK for a lesbian to be a bigot?

Hollywood star Portia de Rossi has been accused of hypocrisy after Sunrise host David Koch revealed she refused to be interviewed by him because he is a man.

The Australian-born actress appeared on the top-rating Channel Seven morning program on Tuesday to publicise her new memoir, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, but would speak only to Koch's female co-hosts, the network said. A Seven spokeswoman this morning confirmed de Rossi's no-men policy, saying Sunrise producers were told her stance was "not just for Australia, it's for around the world".

Koch took to Twitter yesterday to vent his frustration, accusing the star of double standards. "Portia de Rossi would only be interviewed by a woman. Am I weird in thinking that's strange. Be outrage if a man made that a condition," Koch wrote. "Portia has campaigned, quite rightly, for gay rights and equality. Then insists on only being interviewed by women. Hypocritical? U tell me?"

Radio network Austereo today confirmed it had tried to secure an interview with de Rossi by presenters Hamish and Andy this week, but was told the star's preference was to speak to a female. Presenter Fifi Box conducted the interview yesterday instead.

Austereo public relations manager Chelsea Kelly said the program was not advised of a blanket ban on men. "The word used yesterday to us was 'preference' - it was her preference to speak to a woman," Kelly said. "The reason we were given for that was because her book and the context of her book is about women's issues and the pressures on women to be thin and it was just a better fit if the interviewer was a woman. "We didn't have a problem with it. The boys [Hamish and Andy] were quite happy to let Fifi do the interview."

In her book, de Rossi, the wife of US talkshow host Ellen de Generes, details her battle with an eating disorder and her struggle to come to terms with her homosexuality.

SOURCE





British High Court considers barring Christian foster parents

Clergy argues, 'This 'equality' privileges homosexual rights over those of others'

The stunning, benchmark case of a Christian couple told they may not be able to be foster parents under new laws dictating sensitivity to homosexual children is now awaiting judgment from Britain's High Court.

Owen and Eunice Johns of Derby, England, had cared for more than a dozen foster children through 1993, but when in 2007 they wished to resume foster care, they were required to reapply with their city council.

In the interval, however, Britain passed the Sexual Orientation Regulations and the Equality Act, which led a social worker to question whether a Christian couple would be "fit" to care for a potentially homosexual child.

Mrs. Johns told London's Daily Mail, "The council said, 'Do you know, you would have to tell them that it's OK to be homosexual?'" "But I said I couldn't do that," Johns continued, "because my Christian beliefs won't let me. Morally, I couldn't do that. Spiritually I couldn't do that."

The Johns appealed to the courts, hoping it would force their council to clarify whether Christians with traditional views on sexual ethics would be forbidden from adopting foster children.

The groundbreaking legal collision of homosexual "rights" and the freedom of religion has generated extensive public attention, including an open letter from several British clergy signed by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton.

"The High Court is to be asked to rule on whether Christians are 'fit people' to adopt or foster children – or whether they will be excluded, regardless of the needs of children, from doing so because of the requirements of homosexual rights," the clergy write. "This 'equality,' however, privileges homosexual rights over those of others."

"There is a 'clash of rights,' which the court must settle," the clergy continue. "If the court believes that those with traditional Christian views on homosexuality can be discriminated against, the state has taken a position on a moral question, namely that such religious belief is problematic." They conclude, "We trust and pray that common sense and justice will be done."

The Christian Legal Centre, which campaigns for religious freedoms, is representing the Johns. "The case will decide whether the Johns will be able to foster without compromising their beliefs," the CLC said in a statement. "The implications are huge. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of Christian foster carers and adoptive parents hangs in the balance."

Andrea Minichiello-Williams, director of the CLC further told the Mail, "That the court even needs to consider this is a remarkable reversal in the concept of the public good and the traditional definition of sexual morality."

Ben Summerskill of the lesbian, "gay" and bisexual rights charity Stonewall, however, told the newspaper the interests of a child should become before the "prejudices of a parent." "Many Christian parents of gay children will be shocked at Mr. and Mrs. Johns’s views, which are more redolent of the 19th century than the 21st," Summerskill said.

Britain's High Court, which is similar to a federal district court in the U.S., heard testimony earlier this month and is expected to take up to six weeks to hand down its decision.

In the hearings, the Derby City Council was represented by Jeremy Weston, who told the court that the Johns' application had technically never been decided and the council was also waiting for judicial review of the case. "The city council needs clarity on this matter," he said. "It defends diversity and equality and has treated the Johns as it would have treated anyone else. It would be inappropriate for the council to approve foster carers who cannot meet minimum standards."

Weston also said, however, "It would be difficult and impractical to match children with Mr. and Mrs. Johns if they feel that strongly."

Weston added that the Johns' application could also be ultimately denied should the Johns be found "unsuitable" for other reasons, including "if Mrs. Johns' attendance at church twice on a Sunday would limit available time [to care for children]."

SOURCE





Let’s blow Britain's free speech restrictions sky-high

Note to Twitterers: freedom of speech must extend to offensive comments as well as jokes about airports

Doncaster Crown Court’s decision last week to refuse the appeal of a man convicted of making threatening statements on Twitter is bad news for freedom of expression. Many Twitter-users have pointed this out. Yet events over the past year suggest that while Twitter can be used to demand free speech – as the reaction to the appeal verdict shows – it can also echo the censoriousness that runs through society today.

Paul Chambers, a 26-year-old finance manager, had been planning a trip to Ireland to meet a woman he’d met online when he heard that Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster was closed due to snow. He posted the following message on his Twitter account: ‘Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!’ Nothing more than a casual expression of frustration that was not in any way intended to be taken seriously by anyone: just the kind of think-out-loud remark that is made all the time on Twitter. Indeed, the very purpose of the website is to allow such spontaneous, informal messaging.

The remark was drawn to the attention of the head of security at Robin Hood Airport, who also did not take it seriously. Nonetheless, the incident was passed on to the police and, in January this year, Chambers was arrested on suspicion of making an apparent bomb hoax. As Chambers described in an article for the Guardian in May: ‘Call me naive or ignorant, but the heightened state of panic over terror issues was not something I considered as relating to me in any way – until I was arrested, shoved into a police car in front of colleagues, hauled off to Doncaster police station, and interviewed for the rest of the day. My iPhone, laptop and desktop hard drive were confiscated during a search of my house. It was terrifying and humiliating.’

However, as legal commentator David Allen Green noted in May, while the authorities wanted to prosecute Chambers, actually proving that his off-the-cuff remark amounted to a bomb hoax would have been extremely difficult. So instead, Chambers was charged under the Communications Act 2003 with making a menacing communication, an offence created with the aim of protecting women from nuisance phone calls.

He was convicted in May and ordered to pay £1,000 in fines and costs. As a result of the case, he lost his job and his plan to work as an accountant has been ruined. However, surely someone along the line would understand that his post had been in jest? Not a bit of it. On Thursday, at Doncaster Crown Court, Judge Jacqueline Davies declared: ‘Anyone in this country in the present climate of terrorist threats, especially at airports, could not be unaware of the possible consequences.’ She ruled that Chambers’ Twitter message was ‘menacing in its content and obviously so. It could not be more clear. Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed.’ Not only was Chambers’ conviction confirmed, but he was saddled with paying the additional costs of the appeal.

The ruling brought outrage from other, high-profile Twitter users, including comedians Dara O’Briain, Stephen Fry and David Mitchell. By Friday, a thread was raging on Twitter with users re-tweeting Chambers’ original statement under the hashtag #IAmSpartacus - a nod to the finale of the Kirk Douglas movie when the defeated slave army all claim to be Spartacus in solidarity with their leader, even though they knew they risked being executed. This tweet meme soon became a news story in its own right.

The ruling against Chambers is of course a bone-headed one and a threat to the freedom of social network users to speak their minds. Although tweets are broadcast to the world, they are still a personal matter that should not be regulated by the state. As such, the #IAmSpartacus response is to be welcomed as an instinctive reaction to the use of the law in this manner.

However, while the reaction to Chambers’ experience is a healthy one, it relies rather heavily on the facts of this particular case. It would be better to argue that any expression of opinion should be regarded as being protected from state intervention. For example, take the case of Gareth Compton, a Conservative councillor in Birmingham. After hearing the Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown talking on BBC Radio Five Live about human rights, Compton tweeted: ‘Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing, really. #R5L’

Compton is, not unexpectedly, being hauled over the coals by his party for his off-colour remark. But the comment was every bit as tongue-in-cheek as Chambers’, though even less amusing. Yet it is clear there is far less sympathy for Compton, who was arrested on Thursday under the same law that Chambers was convicted under. To his credit, former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris noted the similarities between the two cases, arguing that in relation to the 2003 Act, ‘a change in the law is needed because the chill on irreverent expression on the internet will remain’ regardless of the outcome of the two cases themselves.

But what if Chambers or Compton hadn’t been joking? Allowing the authorities to decide what may or may not be said online is a bad idea, full stop, even if the comments made are widely deemed to be offensive.

Moreover, as the reaction to Jan Moir’s comments in the Daily Mail about the late Boyzone singer Stephen Gateley showed, Twitter users can just as easily be censorious in one context and upholders of free expression in another. Moir’s article was widely regarded as anti-gay, provoking a storm of angry commentary from Stephen Fry and Charlie Brooker, particularly on Twitter. With a thousand appeals to the Press Complaints Commission to take action against Moir, there seem to be some things which, in the eyes of the Twitterati, you are not allowed to say (see I am offended, therefore I am, by Tim Black).

Let’s hope that both Chambers and Compton are eventually exonerated, and that the 2003 Act is changed to remove this cloud hanging over free comment online. More than that, we need to accept, as a society, the right of anyone to express a view, no matter how much it is deemed offensive to some.

SOURCE






The 77% of income fallacy

When Congress returns next week for a "lame-duck," post-election session, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-Nev) will try to muster the 60 votes he needs to block a filibuster of a vote on the misnamed Paycheck Fairness Act. It would be better titled the Paycheck Rareness Act, because it would make paychecks rare by driving small firms out of business and sending larger corporations overseas.

This bill would thrust the government deep into compensation decisions of employers. Its declared purpose is to close the alleged "pay gap" between men and women. That gap is mostly a statistical artifact, a false conclusion-and a rallying cry for feminist lobbyists who are well paid to advocate bills like this one.

Passed by the House of Representatives in January 2009, if the Senate concurs the bill is certain to be signed by President Obama. If it is not passed by the Senate, then, as the frantic feminists warn, there would be no chance of its being enacted next year because the House will have a Republican majority.

The complaint that the feminist organizations love to bandy about is, as the National Women's Law Center asserts on its Web site, www.nwlc.org, "Today, women make just 77 cents for every dollar a man makes..."

That is a spurious conclusion. It omits weekly hours of work, overtime, which is more typically earned by men, education, experience on the job, and time in the workforce. When all of these factors are accounted for, the difference is about five cents on the dollar. And, yes, discrimination against women may-or may not-explain some of that nickel, but the "gap" is far smaller than is alleged and does not merit Congress's imposing a new, cumbersome and costly layer of record-keeping on employers, and inviting more litigation.

The bill would require all employers with more than two employees and $500,000 of gross revenues-no small business exception here-to submit data on sex, race, national origin, and earnings of employees to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, even if no complaint has been filed. The threat of litigation about pay differences between men and women would raise the potential cost of employment, discouraging hiring.

At a Hudson Institute conference on Wednesday, Jerry Savitz, owner of Darby's Restaurant in Belfast, Maine, said, "No one in Belfast has heard of this bill, and when I told them, they were appalled. To hire a lawyer and comply with these regulations would drive me out of business."

Employers would face administrative costs that would silently discourage the hiring of those women who might catch the attention of EEOC investigators. This would particularly affect unskilled, inexperienced women who would start at lower rates of pay, and women who might be expected to take time out of the workforce for children, reducing their future productivity compared with men.

The bill would impose litigation costs on employers even as employees are represented with no out-of-pocket expenses by trial lawyers hopeful for a big slice of a big settlement. The result would be, as former Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao described it at the Hudson conference, "a tsunami of lawsuits and tremendous uncertainty," adding to the estimated $300 billion a year America now spends on litigation.

First, women would be included in class-action suits against employers unless they specifically opt out, raising the costs of litigation whether or not the EEOC finds for the complaining employees.

Second, courts could levy heavier penalties on employers. Under the law now, employers found guilty of discrimination owe workers back pay. Under the pending bill, they would have to pay uncapped punitive damages, with a quarter or a third going to plaintiffs' lawyers. Even innocent employers would be under pressure to settle rather than fight, raising costs of business.

In fact, most employers are innocent of gender discrimination. Of the 942 pay-discrimination complaints filed with the EEOC in 2009, only 4.6% were found to have "reasonable cause," meaning that they merited full-blown investigation.

Third, the bill would allow employers to defend differences in pay between men and women only on the grounds of education, training, and experience-- if these factors were also justified on the grounds of "business necessity." This standard could prohibit male managers with college degrees from being paid more than female cashiers with high school diplomas, if college degrees were not consistent with "business necessity."

Fourth, the bill would put all places of business of an employer in a county, say a local grocery chain, under the same pay standard, even if no complaints were received.

Now, employees who do the same work in one location have to be paid equally. Including all locations would mean that employees in high cost, or unpleasant areas, where the employer has to pay more to attract workers, have to be paid the same as those in low-cost, more pleasant areas. Identifying the same work is hard to do for different jobs in different locations. The intent may be to raise wages of employees at the lower end, but the practical effect is likely to drive up employment costs and encourage layoffs.

One way for some employers to avoid the penalties in the Paycheck Fairness Act would be to move jobs offshore, especially if there is an offshore plant that can be expanded. If the bill were signed into law, the United States would be the only industrial country with this type of legislation.

America leads the world in opportunities for women, and 60% of adult women are in the labor force. The latest unemployment rate for adult women, at 8.1%, is lower than that for men, at 9.7%. Women are closing the pay gap because their education is increasing; they earn well over half of all B.A.s and M.A.s awarded, half of Ph.D.s, and half of professional degrees in law and medicine.

The Paycheck Fairness Act would narrow opportunities for advancement as employers reduce employment. With jobs and the economy now topping Americans' worries, Congress needs to think about how to make America a more welcoming place to create jobs, rather than how best to drive jobs away.

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 or 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 November, 2010

Plastic pig banned from UK toy set for fear of offending Muslims

Trying to drag Jews into it is a lot of rubbish. Jews have their own dietary laws for themselves but they don't try to tell others what to do

Toy shop bosses removed a plastic pig from a children's toy farm set because they feared it would upset Muslim and Jewish parents. A mother who complained to toy store Early Learning Centre (ELC) when she found the pig missing was told it had been removed for "religious reasons," British newspaper The Sun reported.

The mother, named only as Caroline, found there was no pig with the cow, sheep, chicken, horse and dog in the store's HappyLand Goosefeather Farm. Caroline, who brought the toy for her daughter's first birthday, said the farm set still contained an empty sty and a button that made an oinking noise when pressed.

But after writing to ELC's customer services she got an email reply admitting the pig was removed in case it upset Muslim or Jewish parents. Both religions ban the eating of pork because they consider the pig an unclean animal.

The email said: "Previously the pig was part of the Goosefeather Farm. However due to customer feedback and religious reasons this is no longer part of the farm."

ELC confirmed it had taken the pig out of the set when contacted by The Sun. A spokesman said: "The decision to remove the pig was taken in reaction to customer feedback in some parts of the world."

But later they said they would replace the pig in the set but no longer sell it in international markets where it may create offence.

SOURCE




British Tories to axe 'ridiculous' equality law

Theresa May will today scrap a ‘ridiculous’ Harriet Harman equality law dubbed ‘socialism in one clause’. The controversial rule would have forced town halls to take into account inequalities when making policy decisions.

But in a speech today, the Home Secretary will say the law would have led to more bureaucracy and people in better-off areas missing out on valued services.

Mrs May had until next year to decide whether to implement the rule which was part of the Labour deputy leader’s Equality Act. Now she has ruled it will be ditched. The Home Secretary will say: ‘Just look at the socio-economic duty which Harriet Harman slipped into the Equality Act at the last minute. Many have called it socialism in one clause.

‘Harman’s Law, as it affectionately came to be known, was meant to force public authorities to take into account disadvantage and inequalities when making decisions about their policies. 'In reality, it would have been just another bureaucratic box to be ticked. At its worst, it could have meant public spending permanently skewed towards certain parts of the country.

‘Council services like bin collections and bus routes designed not on the basis of practical need but on this one politically-motivated target.’

She said Labour thought they could make things better ‘by simply passing a law saying that they should be made better'. ‘That was as ridiculous as it was simplistic and that is why we are announcing that we are scrapping Harman’s Law for good.’

The Coalition has implemented other parts of the Equality Act. One created ‘third party harassment’, under which workers can sue over banter they find offensive, even if aimed at someone else. Critics said it signalled the end of the office joke.

Mrs May still has to decide on another clause from the Act. ‘Equal pay audits’ would force firms to reveal how much they pay men compared to women.

SOURCE






How to win friends and influence people

Britain's Labour party needs a substantial slice of the middle-class vote to win elections. But in all the Leftist hate that sometimes gets forgotten

A Labour frontbencher has launched an astonishing attack on middle-class voters, branding them liars, racists, drunkards and even paedophiles. Eric Joyce, the party’s Northern Ireland spokesman, condemned the public for attacking lying politicians when they themselves may be ‘living lies’ at home.

In his rant, Mr Joyce condemned ‘articulate and intelligent’ parents for putting the interests of their own children over those of the poor. He accused parents of hypocrisy for condemning drug use while drinking too much and said that MPs were right to appeal to the worst instincts of voters, including racism.

Mr Joyce even condemned attitudes to the danger of paedophiles, pointing out that most sex offenders target young victims within their own families.

He delivered his outburst in an article called Liar, Know Thyself for the website Labour Uncut. He spoke out after shamed former minister Phil Woolas was ousted by an election court for whipping up racial tensions with false claims about his opponent.

Mr Joyce said: ‘Here’s the truth. It’s hard to lie as a politician because everything we say is subject to enormous scrutiny. ‘But politicians know the lies a lot of people live and they pitch to you accordingly. ‘There’s a lot of lying going on, for sure. But [critics] might want to reflect on who is really doing the lying.’

The Falkirk MP said the middle classes ‘hunt for the best deal they can get for those they love’ and then ‘avert their eyes from the reality that if they win some others will lose’ and ‘put together ropey arguments whose main function is to mitigate their guilt’.

The outburst backs up Tory claims that Labour is not the party of aspiration and has a lax attitude toward hard drugs. Michael Fallon, the party’s deputy chairman, said: ‘This extraordinary online rant demonstrates contempt for the electorate. ‘Yet again, it calls Ed Miliband’s judgment into question. Only a few weeks ago he appointed Eric Joyce to Labour’s front bench.’

Mr Joyce accused parents of condemning drug use among the young while drinking heavily themselves. ‘Alcohol does immeasurably more societal and personal damage than ecstasy; but it’s available on tap,literally, while ecstasy’s an A-class drug,’ he wrote.

‘Many people support “the war on drugs” knowing that … it’s completely ineffectual, while doing their own impressive bit for the Treasury down at the pub. ‘So they feel OK for their pain-free opposition to “bad” substance abuse by the generation behind them while indulging themselves on the stuff their own generation deems OK.’

Tacitly accusing voters, like those who backed Mr Woolas, of racism, Mr Joyce said: ‘When desperate politicians in some tightly-fought marginals are tempted into grey areas of language and insinuation, they’re barking up the wrong tree. But on the other hand, perhaps they’re not.’

And in comments that many parents will find insulting, he said: ‘What about, say, child abuse? How much does “stranger danger” dominate public discourse, when the overwhelming majority of it takes place in the household?’

Sources close to the Opposition leader revealed that Mr Joyce will be disciplined by party whips. A Labour spokesman said: ‘Our top priority is to look out for the people of Britain. We have the highest respect for every voter – no matter who they support.’

A chastened Mr Joyce sought to backtrack last night. He said: ‘I was simply saying that issues are not always as straightforward as they seem. I have the highest respect for the public and I would never insult voters.’

Mr Joyce was elected to Parliament in 2005 and achieved notoriety as the MP with the largest expenses. [The pot calling the kettle black]

SOURCE





Loss of values a problem both for kids and for society

Comment from Australia

I’m mourning the demise of what I call the “respect your elders” values of kids today. But I don’t blame them. I blame a new generation of mamby-pamby (not sure that’s a real term but you know what I mean) parents who want to be a child’s friend rather than a parent. I’ve had these concerns for a while, but they’ve been brought to a head by a couple of recent incidents.

First was that story last week about the Queensland 15 year old pulled over by police for not wearing a helmet while riding his bike. Rather than fine the kid or give him a warning, they made him let down his tires and walk home to ensure he didn’t ignore them and simply get back on after they’d gone.

His mother was outraged accusing the police of bullying and putting her 15 year old angel in danger by making him walk half an hour home.

I interviewed the pair on Sunrise. The 15 year old retold the story, and highlighted how unfair it was that the cops also took his pack of cigarettes. He said he asked for the cigarettes back because he knew he had rights. A 15 year old demanding cigarettes back because he has rights. You can just imagine the tone of the exchange.

Rather than his mother getting stuck into him for riding without a helmet and having a pack of smokes, she gets on the case of the police for “putting him in danger”.

This is the issue I have with modern parenting. It’s the rose coloured glasses that their little angels can do no wrong. Backing the kid rather than the authorities. It’s the absence of basic principles like respecting elders and those in authority like the police.

It’s not the kid’s fault. He’s simply following the example of his mum.

These little things bother me. The values which were pretty standard not too long ago but are now seen as old-fashioned and irrelevant.

Things like standing up on a bus for someone older. Things like calling an adult Mr or Mrs unless invited to use a first name.

I had this discussion with some of my colleagues after I explained that I still expect my adult children to address friends of mine as Mr or Mrs unless invited to do otherwise. They were gobsmacked. I explained it was a mark of respect to someone older.

My colleagues claimed adults must earn the respect of children before they than can expect to be shown it. And that is the root of the problem. In my opinion all adults (and those in authority) deserve instant respect from children until they do something to lose it.

Yes it may sound silly and unimportant, but it exemplifies what is happening on a larger scale. Parents are trying way too hard to be their kids’ best friends, rather than being the parent.

A good friend, and inspiration for me, is Father Chris Riley who runs Youth Off The Streets, an organisation which certainly deals with its fair share of troubled adolescents.

For years he’s been helping street kids, drug dependant kids and abused youth by helping them turn their lives around. Guess what his golden piece of advice for parents is? He says setting boundaries is a sign of love, and that it shows kids that someone cares enough about them to set limits and values. He says all kids crave boundaries and direction because it makes them feel safe and loved.

What I fear is that we’re bringing up a new generation of smart-ass kids who have no respect and assume they can get away with anything they like because the boundaries are blurred.

The results from a UK study this week are claiming that it’s better for a kid’s happiness to be an only-child. But reaching this conclusion involved simply asking a bunch of kids whether they’d prefer to be the sole child in their family (and get spoiled rotten). Not exactly a reliable study I don’t think, but now it’s being touted by child psychologists as new, valuable ‘knowledge’.

It’s time parents did their part, stopped worrying about the emotional fragility of their special little darlings and started acting like a parent.

The problem is that people are over-thinking parenting. It’s not rocket science; it’s just common sense. These sort of basic moral lessons may be old-fashioned, but they work.

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 or 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 November, 2010

British voters to be asked to provide signatures at polling stations as Government moves to crack down on electoral fraud

Long overdue. The abuses multiplied under Labour party rule. This would be just a dream in many American States as Democrats hang on tenaciously to the opportunity for corruption

Voters will have to give their date of birth, supply a signature and national insurance number at polling stations by the time of the next election in a clamp down on widespread electoral fraud.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, will set out tough new measures for voter identification in a keynote speech today. He will warn that the political system has fallen ‘dangerously out of step’ with life in Britain and that politics remains ‘closed, remote, elite’.

Mr Clegg will announce a new bill on constitutional reform to sort out the chaotic electoral register. He will say: ‘People must have confidence in the system, and know that it is secure against fraud. So we are committed to tackling fraud by speeding up the move to individual – as opposed to household – registration.’

New security measures will be in place by 2014, in time for the next general election. The previous government had planned to delay tougher rules until after polling day.

The move is expected to clean up the electoral fraud witnessed in areas such as Tower Hamlets, where thousands of bogus voters appeared on the roll weeks before the general election. Labour supporters were accused of packing the electoral roll with relatives living overseas or inventing phantom voters.

Mr Clegg will warn that the government would still have to deal with the millions of people who are not on the electoral register. Around 3.5 million have slipped off the roll – more than the populations of Greater Manchester and Birmingham put together.

In the annual Political Studies Association/Hansard Society lecture in London, Mr Clegg will say:‘The Coalition Government is clear: these missing millions must be given back their voice. There is no magic wand solution; but, equally, there is no excuse for inaction.’

From next year local authorities will compare other databases to the electoral register to identify missing voters. Mr Clegg will say: ‘We've already launched the process, and local authorities are bidding now to run schemes to test what works best. 'The Coalition Government is clear: these missing millions must be given back their voice. There is no magic wand solution; but, equally, there is no excuse for inaction.’ 'Council officers will be able help these people to get on the register. And, if it works, it could be rolled out across the rest of the country.’

The problem of slipping off the register is worst among the young, black and ethnic minority communities and in poorer areas.

Mr Clegg will signal that voting would never be compulsory the way it is in countries such as Australia, saying registration would always be down to individual choice.

More frequent boundary reviews will also be unveiled to end the ‘outdated, haphazard arrangements we inherited from Labour’.

An attempt by Labour to scupper the coalition government’s plans for a boundary shake up was narrowly defeated yesterday by just 14 votes. The government overturned Labour’s attempts to delay the planned redrawing of constituencies, which is tied to a referendum on changing the voting system in the knife-edge vote in House of Lords.

Labour’s ex Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, had argued that because the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill protected the constituency boundaries of the Western Isles and Orkney and the Shetlands, it was ‘hybrid’ and had to be referred to a panel of parliamentary clerks.

If the clerks had ruled that the Bill was hybrid – which means it applies to a specific group differently than to the general public – the timetable for the referendum on the Alternative Vote system would have been thrown into chaos.

Ministers are intent on holding the referendum next May, despite warnings from the Electoral Commission that the timetable is already slipping.

SOURCE





Bonanza for lawyers coming to an end in Britain

Ministers pledged yesterday to take an axe to the compensation culture and slash lawyers’ multi-million-pound earnings. State legal aid will no longer pay for claims against hospitals and doctors or schools and colleges, over immigration or welfare benefit disputes or for divorce lawyers, said Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.

Unprecedented reforms to the £2.1billion-a-year legal aid system will mean that more than half a million court cases annually will no longer be funded by taxpayers. The guiding principle will be that it is available only for civil cases when ‘life or liberty’ is at stake. This will include allegations of domestic violence, child abduction or forced marriage.

Much of the price of reining in legal aid spending will fall on the legal profession, which will see fees to solicitors and barristers cut by more than £400million a year over the next decade.

The Justice Secretary told MPs: ‘Legal aid has expanded so much that it is now one of the most expensive in the world, costing the public purse more than £2billion a year. 'It is now available for a very wide range of issues, including some which do not require any legal expertise to resolve. It cannot be right that the taxpayer is footing the bill for cases which would never have even reached the courtroom door were it not for the fact that somebody else was paying.’

The reform plans were published in a consultation paper which recommends an end to legal aid in most family and divorce cases, medical negligence, education, employment, immigration, welfare benefits and some housing disputes.

It also promises a major shake-up of the controversial ‘no-win no-fee’ system which fuels many compensation culture claims. If the proposals go ahead, lawyers in no-win, no-fee cases will be prevented from claiming success fees from the losing side. These can be as high as the damages the loser must pay.

They will no longer be able to make the loser pay high insurance charges. The reforms say they should be paid from the winnings of their clients, taking a maximum of 25 per cent of the damages. To help meet their costs, judges would raise damages orders by 10 per cent.

Ministers said the cost of legal aid to each taxpayer in the country is £38 a year. This figure compares with an equivalent £3 a year for taxpayers in France and £5 in Germany. Legal aid was first offered in 1949 to provide lawyers in court for the poor.

A major expansion of the system went ahead in the early 1970s. The effect has been that the bill to the taxpayer has gone up sevenfold over the past 25 years, and for 20 years governments have been trying to scale it back.

The reform plans would mean that anyone trying, for example, to sue a hospital would have to pay for their own lawyers or find a lawyer willing to do a no-win, no-fee deal, or, known in legal jargon as a conditional fee agreement. Such cases were, Mr Clarke said, ‘not generally speaking of sufficient priority to justify funding at the taxpayer’s expense’.

Civil payments will continue to be paid for asylum cases, mental health cases, for debt and housing disputes where somebody is in danger of being made homeless, and in ‘public’ family law cases in which children are being taken into state care.

In divorce and family break-up, someone who alleges a partner has been violent can ask a judge to throw him – almost always a male partner – out of their home. Such cases will continue to be covered.

The Law Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, said the legal aid proposals would prevent ordinary people getting ‘access to justice’. Instead, the solicitors’ professional body called for a new tax on alcohol to cover the cost of legal aid. The idea would mean that anyone buying a drink in a pub or a bottle of wine in a supermarket would be contributing to the earnings of lawyers.

SOURCE





Lies and misrepresentations in Australia's most Leftist major newspaper

There's nothing like hatred of Israel to bring out the dishonest reporting

Last weekend, the Good Weekend magazine from the Age published a six page spread entitled ‘Project: Gaza’ by Paul McGeough. The article focused on six activists involved in the Free Gaza Movement, how they came to be involved and their involvement with the flotillas, in particular, the fleet that was involved in clashes with the IDF in late May.

Journalist Paul McGeough was on one of the ships involved in the flotilla, and has spent a large amount of his time since then obsessively covering the events that happened on Mavi Marmara. McGeough and a photographer were ostensibly placed by their employer on the flotilla to observe its mission from an objective viewpoint. They were not supposed to be there as supporters of its aims but rather to report the events as they occurred. Well, that was what was supposed to be the case.

Moreover, although he was on the flotilla, McGeough was not on the Mavi Marmara, the ship where the violence occurred. Yet, he has constantly painted a one-sided picture that could only come from one with partisan views closely aligned to those of the flotilla organisers and indeed, to many impartial observers, he has served as an apologist for the actions of those on the Mavi Marmara who were involved in the violence that took place on board. Despite a substantial body of evidence in the form of photographs, videos and oral and written statements that have contradicted most of his claims, McGeough has ploughed on relentlessly with his one-sided narrative.

McGeough’s past form can be found here, here, here and here.

It came as quite a surprise to me at least, that despite the considerably high volume of material already produced and regurgitated on the subject by McGeough, that the Age would devote another six pages dedicated to the dramatic lies that some of passengers of questionable integrity passed on to McGeough. What is more of a surprise is that his publishers, Fairfax, believe that their “papers endeavour to be balanced, and to put both sides of the question”. That quote comes from a transcript of yesterday’s Fairfax AGM. The speaker was its chairman, Mr. Roger Corbett.

Despite Corbett’s extraordinary claim, the contrary view to that which has been repeated ad nauseum by McGeough, has barely seen the light of day in his publications.

Balanced? You must be joking, Mr. Corbett but we would accept a six page lift out on the subject of terrorism and incitement to violence against Israel and its citizens any time.

To understand the one sided nature of the reporting from the Age, one needs to understand the great lengths that McGeough goes to in order to downplay the role of the violent elements from the IHH. His article made sly references to the “sleek and black” Zodiacs with their “bullet-shaped hulls” followed by the declaration: “As the helicopters moved in, activists on the upper deck rushed to the top level of the ship. By sunrise, nine activists were dead and 50 injured.”

In the words of Jerry Seinfeld, he yada yada’d over the best part. (* Video of the cache of weapons including knives, slingshots, rocks, smoke bombs, metal rods, improvised sharp metal objects, sticks and clubs, 5kg hammers and firebombs, * Close up video of “peace activists” attacking the metal batons, *Video taken by the IDF showing passengers of the Mavi Marmara violently attacking IDF officers trying to board the ship, *Video of the radio exchange between the soldiers on their way to the bridge and the IDF ship. The soldiers are reporting their encounter with live fire and serious violence., *Video of Israeli Navy officer describing the violent mob aboard the Mavi Marmara, *Video of the Mavi Marmara passengers attacking the IDF before the soldiers boarded the ship, *Video of the flotilla rioters as they prepared rods, slingshots, broken bottles and metal objects to attack IDF soldiers, *Video of Israeli naval officers addressing the ship )

All of the evidence that exists is in complete contradiction to McGeough’s claims, particularly given the weight of visual evidence showing the IHH preparing for a violent confrontation taken directly from interviews with passengers aboard the ship (see more here, here and here). Perhaps McGeough also missed that!

He certainly missed the photographs published in the Turkish media taken by IHH operatives in order to embarrass Israel of injured Israeli soldiers, and the removal of a knife and blood by Reuters of these pictures. He missed the actual video of a soldier being stabbed. He missed the footage of the soldier being thrown overboard. All of this has been airbrushed totally out of existence by McGeough.

And of course, there was no mention by McGeough that the IHH is a militant Islamist movement with a record of supporting terror, or that several of the flotilla passengers were active terror operatives with links to al-Qaeda, Hamas and other organisations or that the IHH has been banned elsewhere in the world, such as in Germany for having links to Hamas. Perhaps it is because neither McGeough nor the Age believe that these matters are relevant to the story? In the meantime, McGeough obviously saw some bogus footage of “what appears to be Israeli commandos shooting an activist near point blank range” because all other interpretations of the said footage seem to make it clear, even to non-military experts such as myself, that the gun was a paintball gun. But then again, McGeough also talked about supposed CCTV footage of assassins entering Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s hotel room in Dubai in January, another lie which was later exposed.

To add to McGeough’s tour de force of balanced journalism, he interviewed six people who he believed were the “movers & shakers” of the Free Gaza Movement. Two of the women stated that they became involved in this line of activism after the death of Mohammed al-Dura in 2000. McGeough adds his own commentary in parenthesis: “The 12 year-old-boy died at Netzarim Junction, Gaza, in his father’s arms after being shot by the Israel Defence Forces”.

Right, Mr. McGeough, you’ve researched your subject well except for that some simple fact checking would reveal this story to be not quite accurate (at this stage I would submit that accuracy is no longer relevant in the context of the picture being painted).

At the beginning of the Second Intifada, it was alleged that the IDF was responsible for killing the young child. The images, taken from footage by Charles Enderlin from France 2 Television Network and his Palestinian cameraman, Talal Abu-Rahma, were dispatched worldwide, spurring international outrage directed at the IDF. Over time, various stories came out about the veracity of the reports, including claims that given all of the evidence and the positioning of al-Dura in relation to the IDF soldiers, the fatal shot could not have come from the IDF (see more).

Abu-Rahma’s footage was around 55 seconds but there was another 27 minutes of footage that was never publically released and was only viewed in a French Court after France2 was order to produce the original tapes. Those who were at the hearing and have seen the footage state that none of the frames support the claim that the Israelis were even involved in the particular incident. This is all due to the courageous work of Phillipe Karsenty, who has been dragged through the courts in order to bring this case to a close. Please read this recent interview with Danny Seaman, the former director of the Israeli Government Press Office for more on the al-Dura case.

More HERE (See the original for links)






Australia: Crooks forced to pay victims for crimes

A surprisingly good idea from a Leftist government. They are about to get tossed out on their ears in the forthcoming election so are probably scrabbling for a few conservative votes

New South Wales criminals will be forced to pay into a compensation fund to cover everything from the trauma suffered by victims to damaged property. Making criminals pay and other changes will add up to $20 million to the beleaguered Victims Compensation Fund, which is bleeding money while more than 13,000 victims wait for aid.

A levy of $64 or $148, depending on the severity of the offence, currently applies to offenders facing jail terms. Under NSW Government reforms to occur by the end of the year, it will be extended to a further 65,000 offences. Criminals will pay the levy regardless of how serious their offence is or what they are sentenced to.

Attorney-General John Hatzistergos said it was right that the state's criminals literally paid for their crimes. "It's only fair that people who engage in criminal behaviour contribute to a fund that helps victims rebuild their lives," he said. "The change now means, for example, that a person charged with low-range drink driving will now have to pay the levy if convicted."

Summary offences will attract a $64 levy and indictable offences $148. Criminals convicted of multiple offences will pay for each crime.

Victims of violent crimes can claim up to $50,000 as compensation for injury or trauma, with the family of murder, rape and domestic violence victims can claim the full amount.

The fund has only $60 million but in the 2008-09 financial year it paid $62.9 million to 8212 victims; 13,328 victims were left waiting. Offenders paid just $3.63 million into the fund but the new levy system and changes to unexplained wealth laws are expected to boost the fund by up to $20 million a year.

The unexplained wealth laws introduced earlier this year will see 50 per cent of money confiscated from those involved in criminal activity placed in the fund.

Criminals will also have to cover the damage they cause, with $1500 payments for "any expense incurred" as a result of an injury. Previously the payments, made to those who fall below the threshold for the $50,000 compensation scheme, had been restricted to items such as broken glasses and medical or dental bills.

The levy will help pay for the expanded Victim Assistance Scheme, which begins today. Many claims will now be able to be made online. The only exemptions will be people who have offences dealt with by penalty notice.

South Australia and the Northern Territory currently charge $60 for the most serious offences.

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 or 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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15 November, 2010

The mawkishness that shows Britain no longer knows what its heroes are dying for

They were words one hardly expected to hear from one of our most distinguished military figures ­— especially in the week of Remembrance Sunday. However, that only makes the comments at the weekend of Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Fry, former commander of British forces in Iraq, all the more disturbing.

He said the British ­people had developed a dangerously ‘mawkish’ ­attitude towards the Armed Forces. ‘I think that the British ­people hold the Armed Forces in a state of excessive reverence at the present time. It is a greater infatuation than at any other stage of recent military history that I can recall,’ he said.

With these comments, he has put his ­finger on a subtle, but crucial and ­potentially catastrophic shift in our national psyche.

So what’s wrong with ‘reverence’, you may ask. Well, General Fry is making a brutal and, indeed, shocking observation - that the British hold dead soldiers in deep esteem while despising the causes for which they are currently laying down their lives.

This is because fundamental assumptions about this nation and the wars fought on its behalf have been shattered. For most of the past two centuries, he observed, there had been an unspoken agreement that any war fought by Britain would be based on acknowledged rules; this country would most likely win that war; and the outcome would be largely beneficial. That consensus, however, was broken with the war in Iraq — and may never be repaired.

The result has been that the public now mourn excessively the soldiers who have fallen in battle — who are seen increasingly as the victims, not of the enemies of this country but of its government that commits Britain to fight wars its people no longer support.

That is an utterly devastating observation. Devastating because it is true — and because of its implications. For Britain is a fighting nation. It is a land of historic and classic warrior heroes. Military power is part of its DNA.

For centuries, it has successfully used that power to advance its national ­interests abroad and defend them at home. From the Armada to Trafalgar to the Battle of Britain, military prowess has been synonymous with British greatness and is etched deep into the nation’s ­cultural memory.

Understanding the fact that wars to defend the nation inescapably entail ­sacrifice, the British once bore such losses stoically. Until now — when public displays of emotion over fallen soldiers have reached such a pitch that Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute, has described them as ‘recreational grief’ in memory of soldiers sent by useless governments to fight pointless wars.

Such erosion of the consensus about ­military power arguably started long before Iraq. The widespread use of British soldiers in ‘peace-keeping forces’ stretched the patience of the public, who often found it hard to understand why it was necessary to police the world in this way, let alone see what good it did.

It is rooted further back still, in the last century’s two world wars which, although Britain won them, exacted a terrible toll of casualties and provoked as a result a near-terminal revulsion against war itself.

There is surely a more profound reason still. The acceptance that soldiers fight and die for the good of the nation is based on belief in something beyond the self. But with the erosion of religious faith and the corresponding conviction that there is nothing beyond this world, the idea of dying for any cause becomes less and less persuasive.

Virtues such as heroism, altruism and self-sacrifice have thus been displaced by the culture of instant gratification, while true feeling for others has been replaced by false emotion or mawkish sentimentality.

Throughout this dismaying process of cultural decline, the Armed Forces have remained virtually the last redoubt of ­Britain’s vanishing virtues such as ­courage, orderliness, stoicism and an unshakeable belief in the greater good.

But all around, the rest of British society has been losing its belief in the nation — and its willingness to fight and die to defend it. And if the public no longer ­supports the aims for which the Armed Forces wage war, these suffer a ­catastrophic slump in morale. As Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards has ominously warned about the premature withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan: ‘If we lose this war, it will be in the homes of this country, as people tire of it.’

Rightly or wrongly, the war in Iraq ­shattered public trust in the political and defence establishment ever to tell the truth about why a war is necessary in the national interest. Now Britain is mired in Afghanistan, many think that, too, is a war we should not be fighting.

Personally, I happened to support both wars, and still do. But catastrophic mistakes have been made in explaining precisely why these were so necessary. In particular, there has been an almost total ­failure to convince people that we are living in a very different world with a very different kind of ­warfare that doesn’t fit the old assumptions.

We are up against an enemy we can’t identify easily because it doesn’t wear the uniform of a country’s army, and it often chooses to operate under the false flags of one geographical conflict after another.

This is what General Richards was ­getting at this weekend when he said that Al Qaeda and Islamic extremism could never be defeated. What he meant was that there could be no clear-cut victory, where British troops would march into the capital of a country it had vanquished or liberated.

As for Islamic extremism, an idea, however dangerous, cannot be defeated through military means. But as the ­general said, it can certainly be contained so that people are protected from it. But that means an open-ended military commitment. And that depends crucially on popular support. Without that support, Britain and the West will lose — to an enemy that is fighting on many fronts to bring down the West.

General Richards says: ‘Don’t give up, folks.’ But many are doing precisely that. Not just over Afghanistan or Iraq, but over the very idea that this country’s political and military commanders can be trusted never to put its soldiers in harm’s way unless it really is in the national interest to do so.

A country that no longer understands what it is fighting against — or even more crucially, what it is fighting for — will not, in the long term, survive.

This is all so desperately tragic. This is Britain we are talking about — that land of the lion-hearted that lit the lamp of liberty for the world and whose greatest nobility lay in ensuring that its light was never extinguished. Yet now that mighty heart is all but ­broken. Almost the last place in which it still continues to beat on is in our Armed Forces.

Yes, we must, of course, mourn our fallen soldiers. But in order to respect their ­ultimate sacrifice, we must recognise and support the cause — our national cause — for which they continue to lay down their lives.

SOURCE







Literary bigotry and Islam

Until I was published, I had not experienced that phenomenon known as ‘the literary festival’ or the ‘science fiction convention’ or the ‘[insert favoured genre here] convention’. They are–for one who hasn’t encountered them before–strange beasts, not entirely to be trusted. Like all large, loosely organised events, they are prone to ideological capture, something I soon learnt to my cost (viz, ‘help, I’m the only non-leftie in the room!’).

Seldom, however, do they descend to the level of ideological cant evinced by the Wiscon Science Fiction Convention in its treatment of leading science fiction author Elizabeth Moon. Here is Russell Blackford’s account of events:

Here is the thoughtful, rather temperately-worded blog piece by Elizabeth Moon that led to her being disinvited as a guest of honour at the feminist science fiction convention, Wiscon 35 (to be held in May next year in Madison, Wisconsin). Moon is actually much less temperate about people like me, i.e. baby boomers, than she is about Muslims (I have no idea what her opening sentences are all about, but do read on). However, her remarks on Muslims in America were apparently considered so inflammatory that she was no longer a viable guest of honour for a relatively small convention held in a relatively small American city.

Like Russell, I agree that Moon’s piece is temperate and thoughtful. I disagree with much of what she says, but that’s because she’s coming from a position that I’d describe as ‘liberal left’. I think, for example, that she mischaracterizes libertarians, although I do concede that there is some terrible hypocrisy in the Tea Party movement, especially over welfare (en brief, many conservative Tea Partiers think they should be paid welfare for their large families, and that single mothers should not). One thing I do find extraordinary: the criticism of her for closing the thread and deleting comments after she was subjected to abuse. Believe me, anyone who does that here will get me doing my ‘libertarian property dance’ and will be SOONED into submission. Our blog, our rules.

However, not only was she disinvited by Wiscon:

Her post was, apparently, “an anti-Muslim rant”. No, actually, it wasn’t; as anyone who reads it—and whose cognition is not stuck somewhere within their own posterior—can tell for themselves.

Moon’s piece promulgates a mild form of assimilation policy, one that would be familiar to many Australians (and Americans). She is intelligently critical of Islam from an explicitly feminist perspective. Lorenzo (who I quoted above) makes the following observation:

[S]he moves on to the point that creating a nation of immigrants means that immigrants have some responsibility to fit in. Living in a country with a considerably higher proportion of foreign-born citizens than the US (25% of Australian residents are foreign-born compared to 14% of US residents), I take her point, one that is expressed moderately sensibly.

Moon argues:

Public schooling was viewed as a way to educate immigrant children into the existing American culture–to break down their “native” culture and avoid the kind of culture clashes (between religions and national origins) people brought with them from the old country. Refusal to send children to public schools was once considered a refusal of the duties of citizenship (this changed in the ’60s/’70s, with the white flight from public schools as an attempt was made to create racial balance.) English-language-only instruction was one method used–there was to be one language all citizens understood, so that anyone from any background could communicate with anyone else…to avoid the tight little enclaves that people naturally retreat to because it’s more comfortable. Was this ideal? No, but in a couple of generations, nearly all immigrants’ grandchildren were able to speak English, even if their kids dropped out of school.

There is nothing particularly out there in this argument. Here is the classical liberal F.A. Hayek on the same issue (from The Constitution of Liberty, p 377):

There is a need for certain common standards of values, and, although too great emphasis on this need may lead to very illiberal consequences, peaceful co-existence would be clearly impossible without any such standards. If in long-settled communities with a predominantly indigenous population, this is not likely to be a serious problem, there are instances, such as in the United States during the period of large immigration, where it may well be one.

And–just to make sure all sides of politics are covered–here is the social democratic Joseph Raz (from The Morality of Freedom, p 423):

One particular troubling problem concerns the treatment of communities whose culture does not support autonomy. These may be immigrant communities, or indigenous peoples, or they may be religious sects. It is arguable that even the harm principle will not defend them from the ‘cultural imperialism’ of some liberal theories. Since they insist on bringing up their children in their own ways they are – in the eyes of liberals like myself – harming them. Therefore can coercion be used to break up their communities, which is the inevitable by-product of the destruction of their separate schools, etc?

I should point out that Raz is considerably to the left of the US Democratic Party. He is not, however, weighed down by ridiculous notions that people should somehow be able to live their lives free from offence, or that their religious beliefs are immune from criticism.

As regulars on this blog would know, I am not fond of religious believers insulating themselves from criticism behind thinly veiled threats or some sort of misguided belief that being poor, oppressed or a victim means that one’s beliefs are somehow more worthy of respect or that one’s lived experience is somehow impossible for people unlike oneself to replicate. As George S Clason once noted, ‘experience often wastes her lessons on dead men’. It is possible to have experienced very little and to be very young and to ‘trump’ a professor (or another very experienced person, in whatever field). Mathematicians do this all the time, as do linguists. When Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B, he was working as an architect and not affiliated with any university. Similarly, empathetic understanding of people unlike oneself is a writer’s stock-in-trade; it’s something I routinely engage in myself and is not particularly difficult. Empathy–unless you have some sort of psychological disorder–comes with the biological hardware.

The desire to wrap oneself in the ‘I’m offended’ mantra or the ‘I’m poor and brown and a victim’ mantra is nowhere more prevalent than when it comes to criticisms of Islam, and it is this that has brought Elizabeth Moon undone. Unfortunately, atheists are often anxious to avoid offence (they too have bought into the post-colonial piffle that I would like to see driven headlong from the universities), and tend (too much) to stick to their knitting. Russell Blackford notes:

Forthright atheists are often accused of being prepared to speak out against the wrongs of Roman Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism, but not those of Islam. To a large extent, those accusations are false: we could find many examples where leading atheists do criticise Islam, and particularly political Islam. Still, many of us concentrate on what we know best, which is often Christianity. Furthermore, there’s an intimidation factor: let’s acknowledge it, radical Islamists have done a good job of muting the critique of Islam simply by demonstrating a propensity to extreme violence – think of what happened to Theo van Gogh and the current situation of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who must be heavily guarded wherever she goes. The intimidation factor is raised to an even higher level if it’s reaching the point where comments such as those of Elizabeth Moon can make you unwanted by convention organisers in Madison, Wisconsin. To borrow a phrase, Wiscon is not helping.

In other words, antique tribal drivel remains antique tribal drivel, regardless of the colour and relative wealth of its promulgator.

To add to the risks outspoken ex-Muslims experience, there is a mass of very misleading information about the religion of Islam floating around the internet, most of it promulgated by Muslims themselves, who know next to nothing about their own religion. Some Western scholars and critics of Islam know a little more, but their advantage is relatively minor: we remain almost completely in the dark about Islam because it has never been rigorously studied. One of the reasons why Christianity and Judaism have lost much of their grip on Westerners is because they have been picked apart by classicists and theologians and linguists. This has not happened to Islam, in large part because it is simply too dangerous to do so.

As an atheist who was educated (very thoroughly, I might add) by Lutherans (who are probably equal to the Jesuits in their skill at casuistry and are also rightly proud of the Tübingen school), there are a few things about Islam that you ought to know. Here they are, seriatim.

1. The Qu’ran and Hadiths have never been subjected to what we now know as ‘The Higher Criticism‘ (textual analysis designed to establish authorship and date), so when you read well-meaning Islamic websites assuring you that the Qu’ran and the Hadiths were handed down orally, then written out hundreds of years after Muhammad’s death with a high degree of accuracy, you are being sold the theological equivalent of the notion that it is possible to pick Tattslotto numbers in advance.

2. When Muslims tell you that the pagan civilisation that preceded Islam in Arabia was revoltingly sexist and that Islam represented an advance for women, then you need to avail yourself of a pantechnicon of salt. No research has been done into the pagan civilisation that predated Islam; we only have Muslims’ say-so about it. The reason no research has been conducted into the earlier civilisation is because it is located in Saudi Arabia. It is incredibly difficult to research early Islam, let alone pre-Islamic paganism, thanks to the destructive tendencies of the Saudi government. I am no fan of Islam or Muhammad and think that humanity would have been vastly better off without him or his religion, but news that the Saudi government routinely destroys ancient monuments (including property that once belonged to Muhammad’s family) makes my ‘English Heritage’ heart break: how are we to learn about the past without access to historical or archaeological records?

3. When Muslims make excuses for Muhammad because he married a six year old and bonked her at nine, understand that they are making excuses, and that when modern people criticise him, we are not only criticising him from a position of liberal modernity. The nearest great civilisation (Byzantium) established the age of consent for slaves, concubines and non-citizen girls at 12 (Digest, 30.1; ‘nisi minor annis duodecim sit’). Sure, this ruling goes back to the Roman Empire’s pagan period, when the status of women was considerably higher, but the fact that the Christian Emperors preserved it (while dispensing with the pagans’ liberal divorce laws, dowry laws and property rights for women) suggests they still took it seriously. In other words, what Muhammad did to Ai’sha would have squicked a Byzantine Greek and double-squicked a pagan Roman. The latter would almost certainly have used the ‘p’ word.

4. The same truckload of salt needs to be applied to claims for just about everything else about Islam, even in later periods, something carefully and thoughtfully documented by the likes of Ibn Warraq and Mark Durie.

I’ll leave the final word to Lorenzo, partly because I agree with it and partly because it needs to be said:

I am sure the posterior-interior cerebration on display in the dis-inviting of Elizabeth Moon, and in describing her meditation on citizenship as an “anti-Muslim rant”, is warm and cosy. Reassuring even. It is just not, in any sense, useful. Not for understanding the world, nor changing it for the better. Elizabeth Moon’s feisty, competent heroines are much more useful for the latter.
If you want to understand why the left side of American politics just got an almighty electoral shellacking, the sort of sneering, intolerant, intellectually incompetent, not-talking-to-you (but will shout-at-you) self-delusion that Elizabeth Moon has experienced is part of the story.

SOURCE




Addressing Our Homegrown Enemies -- in Israel and elsewhere

Caroline Glick

This week we learned that Nazareth is an al-Qaida hub. Sheikh Nazem Abu Salim Sahfe, the Israeli imam of the Shihab al-Din mosque in the city, was indicted on Sunday for promoting and recruiting for global jihad and calling on his followers to harm non-Muslims.

Among the other plots born of Sahfe's sermons was the murder of cab driver Yefim Weinstein last November. Sahfe's followers also plotted to assassinate Pope Benedict XVI during his trip to Israel last year. They torched Christian tour buses. They abducted and stabbed a pizza delivery man. Two of his disciples were arrested in Kenya en route to joining al-Qaida forces in Somalia.

With his indictment, Sahfe joins a growing list of jihadists born and bred in Israel and in free societies around the world who have rejected their societies and embraced the cause of Islamic global domination. The most prominent member of this group today is the American-born al-Qaida leader Anwar al-Awlaki.

US authorities describe Awlaki as the world's most dangerous man. His jihadist track record is staggering. It seems that there has been no major attack in the US or Britain - including the September 11 attacks and the July 7 attacks in London - in which Awlaki has not played a role.

Sahfe and Awlaki, like nearly all the prominent jihadists in the West, are men of privilege. Their personal histories are a refutation of the popular Western tale that jihad is born of frustration, poverty and ignorance. Both men, like almost every prominent Western jihadist, are university graduates.

So, too, their stories belie the Western fantasy that adherence to the cause of jihad is spawned by poverty. These men and their colleagues are the sons of wealthy or comfortable middle class families. They have never known privation.

Armed with their material comforts, university degrees and native knowledge of the ways of democracy and the habits of freedom, these men chose to become jihadists. They chose submission to Islam over liberal democratic rights because that is what they prefer. They are idealists.

This means that all the standard Western pabulums about the need to expand welfare benefits for Muslims or abstain from enforcing the laws against their communities, or give mosques immunity from surveillance and closure, or seek to co-opt jihadist leaders by treating them like credible Muslim voices, are wrong and counterproductive. These programs do not neutralize their supremacist intentions or actions. They embolden the Western Islamic supremacists by signaling to them that they are winning. Their Western societies are no match for them.

In recent weeks we have seen a number of statements by establishment political leaders in Europe indicating that they are willing to consider abandoning these politically correct bromides. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's statement last month that "multiculturalism has utterly failed," for instance, is widely perceived as a watershed event.

And in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, former British prime minister Tony Blair acknowledged that there is a problem with unassimilated Muslims in Britain. As he put it, anti-immigration sentiment is not general but particular. It relates, Blair admitted, to "the failure of one part of the Muslim community to resolve and create an identity that is both British and Muslim."

Blair acknowledged that it is due to the European establishment's refusal to recongnize the problem of growing Islamic supremacism in Europe that so many millions of Europeans are today ditching the establishment and its politically correct orthodoxies and voting for anti-establishment politicians who are willing to address the problem. He called for a continent-wide approach to immigration whose goal would be to prevent jihadists from exploiting the system to overthrow it.

Statements like Merkel's and Blair's are insufficient. But the very fact that enough Europeans are willing to break the PC barrier to force these leaders to acknowledge and perhaps address the challenges of unassimilated, supremacist Muslim minorities means that Europe is taking the first steps towards addressing the challenges that jihadist Islam poses to its security, culture and civilization.

Perhaps most emblematic of this change was the Merkel government's recent move to finally close the mosque in Hamburg where the September 11 plotters met and planned their acts of war against the US.

Disturbingly, the establishments in the two countries most actively targeted by global jihad - the US and Israel - remain in deep denial about the challenges of homegrown jihadist fifth columnists. The US remains in denial even though the majority of recent jihadist attacks and attempted attacks against the US were carried out by American citizens.

The US's denial of the nature of the jihadist threat was demonstrated in all of its politically correct glory this week with President Barack Obama's address to Indian students at St. Xavier University in Mumbai. In response to a student's query about his view of jihad and jihadists, Obama praised Islam as "one of the world's great religions." He went on to claim that the overwhelming majority of Muslims view Islam as a religion of "peace, justice, fairness and tolerance."

Obama's message was not only deceptive and off point, it was deeply insensitive to his audience. Two years ago this month, Mumbai was the site of a massive jihadist commando attack against targets throughout the city, and Mumbai's residents are still grappling with the wounds of that attack.

Obama's statement also ignored the US's contribution to that attack. The suspected mastermind of the Mumbai massacres was a US citizen named David Coleman Headley from Obama's hometown of Chicago. Moreover, Headley (formerly Daood Sayed Gilani) served for many years as a double agent. A convicted drug dealer, he was sent to Pakistan as a Drug Enforcement Agency agent. While there, he trained at Lashkar-e-Taibe jihadist training camps.

Obama failed to note that perhaps due to his work at the DEA, US law enforcement officials ignored testimonies from two of Headley's former wives in 2005 and 2007 that he was a member of Lashkar-e-Taibe, the India-focused Pakistani al-Qaida affiliate run by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Rather than address these issues, or the fact that the US has refused Indian extradition requests for Headley, Obama vacuously told students that it is the job of young people from all religions to reject extremism and violence.

Headley, of course, is just one of many American jihadists who has enjoined the fruits of America's politically correct denial of the homegrown Islamic threat. In the months following the September 11 attacks, the US Department of the Army actively courted Awlaki as part of its Muslim outreach program. Awlaki, then George Washington University's Muslim chaplain, was wooed despite his documented links to three of the September 11 hijackers.

As Israelis wake up to the reality of al-Qaida in Nazareth, our leftist establishment remains in denial about its role in enabling this reality. Sahfe's Shihab al-Din mosque was established as a triumphalist mosque adjacent to the Church of the Annunciation in the lead up to the millennium. At the time, the Vatican launched a vocal protest against its construction.

In the hopes of winning over the likes of Sahfe, then-prime minister Ehud Barak and then-foreign minister and public security minister Shlomo Ben-Ami rejected the Vatican's objections. They even donated the land for the mosque from the Israel Lands Authority.

Safhe returned the favor by interrupting Pope John Paul II's homily at the Church of the Annunciation during his March 2000 visit with a call to prayer. Months later, the Shihab al-Din mosque was one of the focal points for inciting the anti-Jewish riots in the Arab sector in October 2000.

Today, leftist judges together with leftist politicians and opinion makers block all efforts by politicians and the public to acknowledge and address the growing lawlessness and jihadist bent of Israel's Muslim minority. Fear of the politically correct Supreme Court has deterred authorities from outlawing the Islamic Movement. Efforts to contend with illegal land seizures and building have been blocked by the leftist media, pressure groups largely sponsored by the New Israel Fund and the courts. Even symbolic measures like the government's recent bid to require non-Jewish immigrants to pledge loyalty to the state have been viciously attacked by Israel's leftist establishment as fascist and racist.

But as Europe is belatedly acknowledging, these politically correct commissars must be sidelined if the free world is to withstand the growing threat of homegrown jihad.

What this means for Israel is that the political and legal space has to be found to speedily embark on the law enforcement equivalent of a counterinsurgency operation. Israel must enforce its laws with as much zeal and commitment in the Muslim sector as it does in the Jewish sector. This means that Shihab al-Din and other jihadist mosques have to be closed.

It means that jihadist groups like the Islamic Movement have to be outlawed and its leaders have to be tried for treason and other relevant offenses. The same is true for all Arab leaders, political groupings and social organizations that promote the destruction of Israel.

Building and zoning laws must be enforced. State lands that have been seized must be taken back, if necessary by force, including with the involvement of the IDF.

So, too, Jewish rights have to be protected. Like Muslims, Jews have the right to buy land and homes throughout the country. Jews who wish to live in Muslim-majority communities must enjoy the protection of the law just as Muslims who live in Tel Aviv and Upper Nazareth do.

By the same token, the government must embark on a campaign to win back the loyalty of its Muslim citizens. It must empower leaders who embrace their identity as Israelis and seek the integration of Israeli Muslims into the wider society. Authorities must ensure that Israeli Muslims who wish to integrate are not discriminated against by Jews or intimidated by other Muslims.

Over the past couple of weeks, IDF commanders have spoken at length about the nature of the war to come. Their remarks have concentrated on what is already largely recognized - that Israel's home front will be targeted by long-range missiles.

Disappointingly, they ignored the most significant new threat facing the home front today: The likelihood that Israel's external foes will receive active assistance from its Muslim citizens.

Nearly a decade after the September 11 attacks, global jihad remains the central threat to the West, and not because of its popularity in western Pakistan. It remains the central threat to the free world because of its popularity among the Muslims in the free world.

To remain free, free societies must shed our politically correct shackles and address this growing menace to everything we hold dear.

SOURCE






Created by God to be good

IT HAS BECOME an annual tradition: The days grow shorter, the holidays approach, and the American Humanist Association rolls out an ad campaign promoting atheism and disparaging religion.

Last year, the organization placed ads reading "No god? No problem!" on hundreds of billboards and buses in more than a dozen cities. Its theme in 2008 was: "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake."

This year, the association is taking a more combative tone. It is spending $200,000 to "directly challenge biblical morality" in advertisements appearing on network and cable TV, as well as in newspapers, magazines, and on public transit. The ads juxtapose violent or otherwise unpleasant passages from the Bible (or the Koran) with "humanist" quotations from prominent atheists. For example, a dreadful prophecy from the Hebrew prophet Hosea -- "The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open" -- is contrasted with Albert Einstein's comment that he "cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation."

Of course anyone can cherry-pick quotes to make a point. And of course it is true, as the humanist group's executive director Roy Speckhardt maintains, that there are "religious texts" that "advocate fear, intolerance, hate, and ignorance." Religion has often been put to evil purposes or invoked to justify shocking cruelty; the same is true of every area of human endeavor, from medicine to journalism to philosophy to the law.

But it will take more than a few grim verses plucked out of context to substantiate the core message of the American Humanist Association's ad campaign: that God and the Judeo-Christian tradition are not necessary for the preservation of moral values and that human reason is a better guide to goodness than Bible-based religion.

Can people be decent and moral without believing in a God who commands us to be good? Sure. There have always been kind and ethical nonbelievers. But how many of them reason their way to kindness and ethics, and how many simply reflect the moral expectations of the society in which they were raised?

In our culture, even the most passionate atheist cannot help having been influenced by the Judeo-Christian worldview that shaped Western civilization. "We know that you can be good without God," Speckhardt tells CNN. He can be confident of that only because he lives in a society so steeped in Judeo-Christian values that he takes those values for granted. But a society bereft of that religious heritage is a society not even Speckhardt would want to live in.

For in a world without God, there is no obvious difference between good and evil. There is no way to prove that even murder is wrong if there is no Creator who decrees "Thou shalt not murder." It certainly cannot be proved wrong by reason alone. One might reason instead -- as Lenin and Stalin and Mao reasoned -- that there is nothing wrong with murdering human beings by the millions if doing so advances the Marxist cause. Or one might reason from observing nature that the way of the world is for the strong to devour the weak -- and that natural selection favors the survival of the fittest by any means necessary, including the killing of the less fit.

To us today, believers and nonbelievers alike, it may seem obvious that human life is precious and that the weakest among us deserve special protection. But would we think so absent a moral tradition stretching back to Sinai? It seemed obvious in classical antiquity that sickly babies should be killed. "We drown even children who at birth are weakly and abnormal," wrote the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger 2,000 years ago, stressing that "it is not anger but reason" that justifies the murder of handicapped babies.

No, reason alone is not enough to keep human beings humane. Only if there is a God who forbids murder is murder definitively evil. Otherwise its wrongfulness is no more than a matter of opinion. Mao and Seneca approved of murder; we disapprove. Who are we to say they were wrong?

The God who created us, created us to be good. Atheists may believe -- and spend a small fortune advertising -- that we can all be "good without God." Human history tells a very different story.

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 or 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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14 November, 2010

Christmas crackers: child banned from buying festive favourites

Insane British nanny-state laws



A shop assistant refused to let a six-year-old girl help her mother buy a box of Christmas crackers – because of laws banning the sale of "explosives" to children. The cashier told Lisa Innes, 36, that taking the box from her daughter Tia-Rose for scanning at the till was illegal due to the "snap" in the crackers.

Mrs Innes was told that the rules still applied even though she was the one paying for the £4.99 box of ten crackers at the QD store in Stowmarket, Suffolk. The assistant insisted that the Deluxe red and silver crackers could only be bought if they were handed over by an adult for scanning.

Mother-of-three Mrs Innes said the ruling left Tia-Rose in tears because she thought she might end up in jail for breaking the law. She said: "The whole thing was just bizarre. It was just an example of the ridiculous nanny state we live in. "Tia-Rose loves pulling crackers on Christmas Day like any other child and she has never managed to blow herself up yet."

The incident happened after she and her daughter carried several items to the till for payment while out shopping with her 15-year-old son Brandon. Mrs Innes of Buxhall near Stowmarket said: "There was a huge display of crackers in the store and Tia-Rose was attracted to them straight away. "I was not planning to buy any, but I agreed to get some because they were such a reasonable price.

"Tia-Rose asked if she could hold the crackers and I said 'yes' as I didn't see an issue. Nobody batted an eyelid as we walked around the shop a few times. "But when we got to the till the lady told me, 'Do you realise you have been breaking the law'. "I looked behind me thinking she was talking to someone else – but then she stated that allowing Tia-Rose to walk around with the crackers was against the law. "She said that she couldn't take the box from her as she was under 16 and the crackers were classed as explosives. "I could have understood if they were fireworks – but they were just harmless crackers.

"It was also obvious that Tia-Rose wasn't paying for them – but the lady still refused to take them from her. "I was really shocked and my son Brandon was speechless which doesn't happen an awful lot. "I ended up putting down the things I was carrying and giving her the box of crackers myself. "Then the assistant scowled at me when I said I would be giving the box back to my daughter."

She added: "I have to say it upset Tia-Rose so much for two reasons. Firstly, she thought that she couldn't have a Christmas cracker on Christmas day. "Secondly, she also thought that I was going to get sent to prison as the lady said, I had broken the law. She was inconsolable. "The only way I could stop her cry was by insisting that nobody was going to jail and taking her to the bakery for a pink bun.

"I wish stores would think before saying such things to parents with young children around."

A QD Stores spokesman defended the assistant's actions and said the crackers, along with knives and fireworks, were restricted items. He said: "This item is designated as an age-related sale due to the snap inside the cracker. "It's trading standards legislation that such purchases cannot be sold to a person under 16 and in this case we couldn't sell them to a child."

The spokesman accepted that Tia-Rose was not actually making the purchase, but he said the assistant could not be seen to accept the item from her. He added: "Sales assistants and companies can incur very heavy fines in these cases."

The Pyrotechnics Articles (Safety) Regulations introduced in 2010 reinforced laws banning the sale of explosive items to children. The regulations ban all Under 18s from buying outdoor fireworks – but Under 16s are also banned from buying crackers, novelty matches and indoor fireworks. Anyone breaching the rules can face prosecution by the Heath and Safety Executive with a maximum penalty of a (pounds) 5,000 fine or three months imprisonment.

SOURCE




Tribunal fight for Christian doctor axed by panel in gay adoption row

A Christian doctor ousted from a council adoption panel after refusing to endorse gay couples is taking her case to an employment tribunal, claiming religious discrimination. In a case that could go all the way to the European courts, Dr Sheila Matthews said there was ‘no reason’ the council could not find a compromise to accommodate her views.

She has now resigned from her £72,000-a-year post as a community paediatrician, claiming her career has been irreparably damaged.

Dr Matthews blames political correctness for creating a ‘hostile climate’ for Christians, adding: ‘It is getting really scary. ‘The anger I feel is not only for me but for lots of other people of faith who feel they have to choose between their beliefs and their job.’

Her case, which starts tomorrow in Leicester, follows that of Eunice and Owen Johns, a couple from Derby who were banned from fostering because of their traditional Christian views about homosexuality.

Dr Matthews says her objections to gay adoption are based on scientific findings as well as biblical teachings.

The 50-year-old mother-of-one was appointed as medical adviser to one of Northamptonshire County Council’s two adoption panels six years ago. She medically examined couples who applied to adopt to make sure they were healthy enough to provide a child with long-term care. She then reported to the ten-strong panel made up of councillors, social workers and lay people, of which she was a full member.

The panel then interviewed applicants before members voted on whether the prospective adoptive parents should be recommended.

But the final decision in all adoption cases was made by the council’s head of children and young people’s services, who was not bound by the panel’s advice.

Dr Matthews’s problems arose in January 2009 when a gay
couple applied to adopt, the first such case since the introduction in 2006 of equality laws that required adoption agencies to consider homosexual candidates in the same way as hetero¬sexual ones.

Dr Matthews, a Christian since she was a teenager, said she
had concluded after years of research that gay households were not as good for vulnerable children as a father and mother. Rather than voting against the gay applicants, however, she told the head of Northamptonshire’s adoption team that she would abstain.

In April last year, however, she was summoned to a meeting with the head of children’s services. A month later, she was removed as a full member of the panel. In August, the NHS Primary Care Trust, which had allowed her to continue as the medical adviser without voting rights, replaced her in this role. In March this year she resigned.

Dr Matthews said the council had acted unreasonably as only a tiny number of cases involved gay couples, and it would have been easy to allow her to abstain or find a substitute for her on the panel on those occasions.

Her case is being backed by the Christian Legal Centre and she is being represented by human rights lawyer Paul Diamond. Andrea Williams, of the Christian Legal Centre, said: ‘It cannot be right that a doctor of such standing is forced from her role on an adoption panel just because of her professional and Christian views.’

A Northamptonshire County Council spokesman said: ‘It is inappropriate to comment on this matter at this stage’.

SOURCE








The right to speak out: British doctor who questioned efficacy of 'breast-boosting' cream threatened with libel action

A cream that claims to give women bigger breasts was last night at the centre of a major legal row that threatens the rights of doctors and scientists to speak their minds without fear. The attempt by the cream’s makers to silence experts’ criticism of their product is the latest attack on freedom of speech under Britain’s increasingly controversial libel laws.

The cream, called simply ‘Boob Job’, is advertised with the claim that it will increase a woman’s bust size by half a cup size. It costs £125 for a 100ml jar.

It is one of several major cases in recent months involving legal threats to doctors, scientists and science writers who have criticised commercial organisations. Cases have included a battle over whether a writer could question the effectiveness of chiropractors, a vitamin manufacturer’s bid to penalise a doctor who doubted claims that vitamins could treat HIV/Aids patients, and an action against a doctor who queried clinical trials of a medical device.

The latest row involves legal threats against plastic surgeon Dr Dalia Nield, who voiced her reservations over Boob Job.

Makers Rodial said natural chemicals in the cream, would, if rubbed on a woman’s chest in a ­circular motion every day for 56 days, increase the number of fat cells in the breasts and improve their ability to store fat. Dr Nield said in remarks published by the Daily Mail last month that it was ‘highly unlikely’ the cream would increase bust size.

She also questioned the amount of information provided by Rodial and warned that the gel ‘may even harm the skin and the breasts’, adding: ‘We need a full analysis.’

Chelsea-based Rodial was founded in 1999 by Greek businesswoman Maria Papageorgiou, 40, also known as Maria Hatzistefanis. It claims to have an annual turnover of more than seven figures, while its beauty and skincare products are sold in 200 stores in ten countries worldwide.

Hegarty, a legal firm representing Rodial, has written to Dr Field to demand detailed explanations of her remarks and warning her to ‘seek independent legal advice’.

The move has come despite a resounding Appeal Court judgment in April in favour of science writer Simon Singh, who called chiropractors’ claims that they could treat colic, ear infections and feeding problems in babies and toddlers ‘bogus’.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge said anyone considering it a libel would be acting as ‘an Orwellian Ministry of Truth’. Medical organisations rallied round Dr Nield yesterday. Fazel Fatah, of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, said: ‘Doctors, who have a duty of care to patients, and the public at large, should be able to give their considered opinions and show scepticism, without fear of libel suit.’

Senior libel lawyer Rod Dadak, head of defamation at Lewis Silkin solicitors, said: ‘They’re trying to gag her. These proceedings are completely misplaced. Her defence is that it’s fair comment. ‘To try to stop such comments being made is not in the company’s interest or that of the members of the public – certainly not the users of the cream.’

Let's be clear about this; the very basis of science is the ability to say ‘No, you are wrong’ without fear or hindrance. That is how science progresses – by discovering new things and pouring cold water on old certainties. If it starts to be seen as defamatory to contradict a claim, then the very heart of scientific inquiry, not to mention basic freedom of speech, is under threat.

Last year, the science writer Simon Singh was sued by the British Chiropractic Association after pointing to the lack of evidence for some of the claims made by its practitioners. After a storm of protest, the case was dropped, but not before Dr Singh had suffered months of stress wondering if he was going to lose his house and everything he owned if the courts found against him.

Because England’s laws are so generous to litigants, ‘libel tourists’ who feel they have been wronged in newspapers and scientific journals use the fact that these publications are usually published in English online (and hence ‘published’ here) to cash in and silence criticism at the same time.

Sadly, our libel laws are being used even by ‘respectable’ institutions that want critics silenced. Dr Peter Wilmshurst, a consultant cardiologist at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, is being sued by American company NMT Medical for voicing concerns about some of NMT’s research. NMT recently threatened to sue Dr Wilmshurst a second time for going on Radio 4’s Today programme last year to talk about his case.

Ornithological charity the RSPB, meanwhile, is currently being sued by two conservationists, Gordon and Christine Bowker, for criticising their scientific research on population decline in black grouse.

And a Portuguese professor of linguistics, Francisco Lacerda, was sued by Nemesysco, a lie detector manufacturer, after he wrote a peer-reviewed paper in an international journal suggesting that their machines do not work.

Professor Lacerda works in Sweden; the lie detectors are made in Israel. But it was English libel laws that were used to try to silence him, in what Dr Singh has called the ‘global chill’ caused by our legal system.

Worse, because the most insidious form of censorship is self-­censorship, editors of the leading scientific journals now consult their lawyers for every edition and some have rejected papers they would otherwise want to publish.

Scientific disputes are not matters for the courts. If I wish to say your potion does not work I should be free to do so, even if it turns out that I am wrong.

The irony is, of course, that by reaching for their lawyers these people have massively increased the likelihood that you will read about the debates and conclude, in all probability, that Boob Job sounds like a waste of money. It is called the law of unintended consequences; a law which holds true whatever nonsense is peddled in court or written on a bottle of snake oil.

SOURCE




"The long-run trajectory for Aborigines (blacks) in Australia is integration", says Labor Party figure, Gary Johns

Any amendments to the Constitution to recognise Aborigines should be minimalist. THE Gillard government's intention to discuss the wording of a constitutional amendment to recognise Australians of Aboriginal origin provides the opportunity to ask where we are headed in Aboriginal affairs.

Should this amendment be seen by activists as a chance to settle old scores, they had better think again. The long-run trajectory for Aborigines in Australia is integration. The experiment with separate development in the past 40 years has been a dismal failure.

To appreciate the nihilism of Aboriginal Australians sitting on their land being fed by the Whiteman, just watch the film Samson & Delilah. Two black kids sitting on their land eating from tins, drinking bore water and staring into space is not much fun.

That does not mean there has not been a flowering of the talents of people of Aboriginal descent, but do these people warrant a special mention in the Constitution?

To make up for this failure of separatism, the Aboriginal lobby, led as it is by wholly integrated Aborigines of mixed descent, is desperate to have every Australian recognise their culture.

The trouble is, Aboriginal culture, in any sense in which the original inhabitants practised it, is long gone. Elements of the original that remain, such as polygamy and underage sex, are illegal or, in the case of sorcery, re-emerging around places such as Yuendumu and Groote Island, is just plain evil.

The fact is, with Aboriginal intermarriage rates at more than 70 per cent and most Aborigines living in the cities and regions and fast integrating, the question of identity is looking very thin. Much more important, Aboriginal identity and culture is a matter for those who claim its ownership, it should not be force-fed to the rest of the nation. If children are to be taught Aboriginal culture, I want for them the full unexpurgated version, not the pretty commemoration of recent invention that one can pick up on the bookshelf at the ABC shop or a university politics department.

The census question "What is this person's racial origin?" has not been asked since 1971. Since then the census has asked, "Is the person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait origin?" As has been observed across the Anglo settler countries, growth in census numbers reflects the movement of ethnicity from the biological to the social realm. Being an Aborigine just isn't what it used to be.

This is fine, as long as no privileges arise from that identity. Already we see the complaint from fair-skinned Aborigines that they are being refused jobs reserved for Aborigines. Those, who because of their looks could never have suffered prejudice, are denied the assistance specifically meant for those who may have suffered prejudice. Identity politics should not be used for people who suffer no prejudice greater than any other.

Be wary that the constitutional amendment is not used to privilege those Aborigines who have made it in the modern world, in the name of those who have not.

Here are my suggestions for the committee considering the constitutional amendment.

The present preamble to the Australian Constitution begins: "Whereas the people have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Constitution hereby established." We could add the words: "Whereas those who came to Australia after the act of settlement by the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland recognise that this land was first settled by Aboriginal people."

Such minimal treatment is not to diminish the Aboriginal people; rather, it is to understand that no one receives a mention in the Australian Constitution. It is also important to reinforce that setting up a constant reiteration of "we were here first" undermines the task that every inhabitant of this land has: to get on with it.

In the Constitution proper, section 25, which states, "if by the law of any State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections", thankfully no longer applies and should be removed.

Perhaps section 51. xxvi, "The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws", should remain, although the suggestion by Mick Gooda, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, that this power has been used to discriminate against Aboriginal people is laughable.

A statement in the preamble that recognises the original inhabitants is all that Australians will agree to. Any amendments that acknowledge a special relationship with the land or the culture will invite critical scrutiny.

The nonsense that was forced through the Victorian and ACT parliaments in various acts of rights and responsibilities by Labor (and some Liberal) dreamers will not pass muster at a referendum. If you want a large yes vote at the referendum, the amendment must be minimalist.

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 or 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 November, 2010

I'm 63 and I'm Tired

This was written last year by Robert A. Hall (a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate) but I think it deserves a rerun here

I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.

I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honour"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offence; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America and Canada , while no American nor Canadian group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off?

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I'm damn tired . But I'm also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter.





No justice in Britain for men falsely accused of rape

Plans to give anonymity to men charged with rape were abandoned yesterday. The decision marks a dramatic U-turn and abandons a key pledge in the Government’s coalition agreement.

Justice Minister Crispin Blunt announced the proposal would be ditched because there was not sufficient evidence to justify a change in the law. But at the same time he published a report which revealed that between eight and 11 per cent of rape claims are fabricated.

Just 36 per cent of rape trials result in a rape conviction and more than half result in no conviction at all, even for a lesser offence.

That fuelled accusations last night that the Government had caved in to a chorus of protests from women’s groups and Labour MPs.

Women who accuse a man of rape will continue to receive anonymity, a legal right they have had for 35 years.

Meanwhile more than 200 men every year who face false claims will continue to have their reputations damaged.

Victims of false claims such as snooker player Quinten Hann, who was acquitted in 2002, have seen their lives derailed by false accusations.

The reverse is embarrassing for David Cameron, who endorsed plans to give men anonymity between arrest and charge at Prime Minister’s Question Time in June.

But even that limited protection was ditched yesterday. In a ministerial statement yesterday, Mr Blunt said: ‘The Coalition Government made it clear from the outset that it would proceed with defendant anonymity in rape cases only if the evidence justifying it was clear and sound, and in the absence of any such finding it has reached the conclusion that the proposal does not stand on its merits.’

Mr Blunt said there was not enough evidence to overcome concerns that ‘the inability to publicise a person’s identity will prevent further witnesses to a known offence from coming forward, or further unknown offences by the same person from coming to light’.

Officials say Attorney General Dominic Grieve has been a supporter of the policy of anonymity for men. But one source said Mr Blunt and his boss, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, had taken ‘the path of least resistance’ by abandoning the plans.

The policy was included in the coalition agreement because the Tories believed it was formal Lib Dem policy before the election, but Nick Clegg’s party claimed to be surprised by the inclusion. The plan created a backlash in Westminster from feminist Labour MPs.

Shadow minister for women and equality Yvette Cooper said: ‘It was a deeply unfair plan to single out rape defendants to remain anonymous and would have sent a message to juries and to victims that uniquely in rape cases the victim should not be believed.’

But George McAulay, of the UK Men’s Movement pressure group, said: ‘I can’t say I’m surprised by this because the feminist lobby is extremely powerful.’

SOURCE





British teenager who cried rape after cheating with ex-boyfriend is jailed for 12 months

Why did the cops just take her word for it in the first place? The cops involved are just as guilty

A teenager who cheated with her ex-boyfriend has been jailed for 12 months - for falsely claiming he raped her. Amanda Bradley, 19, texted her new partner to say she'd been raped, Bolton Crown Court heard yesterday, and her victim was arrested while still in her bedroom. Three months later Bradley finally admitted to police that she'd lied.

Sentencing, Judge Steven Everett said: 'There was indeed an element of spite about what you did and an element of meanness. 'You wanted to get him into trouble and you knew full well you were going to get him into trouble in a very big way.' Bradley pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice at an earlier hearing.

Having been arrested, the 28-year-old man she accused - who was not identified in court - was subjected to an 'intimate' forensic examination, interviewed at length and kept in police cell for 17 hours. He had the offence hanging over him for three months before Bradley's change of heart.

Judge Everett said: 'That must have been a terribly traumatic thing for him. It's impossible to imagine just how traumatic it must have been.'

Geoffrey Southcote-Want, prosecuting, told the court that Bradley's boyfriend called the police on April 5 to say she had been raped. Officers went to her home address in Bolton, Greater Manchester, and they found her in a bedroom with the victim. She told police she had been raped.

She then spent a long time with an officer specially trained to deal with victims of rape who listened to her story. Clothing was seized and samples taken. She then visited the St Marys Sexual Assault Referral Centre and underwent a full forensic examination, having been transported to and from the centre by a police officer.

When interviewed the victim strenuously denied he had raped her and said the sex was consensual.

In May, Bradley was video-interviewed by police and again reiterated her claim she had been raped. But in June she contacted the investigating officer to withdraw her complaint. She was interviewed again and admitted the sex had been consensual.

When asked why she did it, she told police: 'Because I'd just had enough of him, because every time I got a boyfriend he still wanted sex with me and everything like that.'

Andrew Costello, defending, said that Bradley was only 18 when she committed the offence and described her as being 'very immature and naive'.

Detective Inspector Andy Meeks, of Bolton CID, said: 'Greater Manchester Police would encourage anyone who has been a victim of rape or any sort of sexual abuse to come forward. 'We treat every allegation seriously and will investigate thoroughly and without prejudice.

'The support we gave to Bradley shows just how seriously we take any allegation and I want to stress that in publicising this case, we want anyone who has been a genuine victim to speak to us because we can help not only you, but also put your attacker behind bars.

'However, we must also treat lying to the police about such an awful crime equally seriously. 'Unfortunately, false allegations make a mockery of the experiences suffered by genuine victims.'

He added: 'In investigating this false claim, officers wasted countless hours interviewing witnesses and on paperwork when they could have been dealing with a genuine emergency.

'Not only that, but the man she alleged was responsible had to spend time in a custody cell, wrongly accused of an offence he did not commit. Unfairly, he has been put through a tremendous amount of stress when he is completely innocent.'

SOURCE





‘Burn in Hell’: Muslim Protesters Disrupt British Veterans Day‏

While America celebrates Veterans Day on Thursday, Britons across the pond are wrapping up a similar celebration called Armistice Day. Both honor the brave men and women fighting (and who have fought) in the armed services. That didn’t matter to a group of Muslim protesters on Thursday, however, who interrupted services in London with chants of “British soldiers burn in hell” and banners saying “Islam will dominate” and “Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hell.”

The group of about 30 people, according to the Scottish Sun, is called Muslims Against Crusades. And while they screamed their hate, they were met by 50 counter protesters from the English Defence League:

“I’m disgusted,” one mother whose son was killed in Afghanistan told the Sun. “There are people like myself that at 11am today were remembering the lives of our children, and then there are some people doing something so hurtful as that. I think it’s atrocious.” “We’re talking about individuals who have died for their country,” she added.

The Sun reports that three members of the Muslim protest group were arrested — two for alleged public order offences and one over claims he assaulted a police officer — while one intervening officer was taken to the hospital with a head injury.

“My son went to Iraq with the Marines fighting for Muslims to get rid of a tyrant so they could have some freedom,” said a father whose son was also killed.

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 or 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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12 November, 2010

It’s time to stand up for courage and conviction

Machiavelli and other humanists would have been appalled by today’s bureaucratisation of everyday life that threatens vital public virtues. Whilst there is an obsession with ‘public engagement’ today, the very virtues necessary for a public spirit - risk-taking, devotion, courage - are stigmatised

Frank Furedi

There has been considerable discussion in recent years about the lack of public engagement in civic and political life. But this discussion suffers from the fact that it’s conducted from the perspective of a political elite that is itself socially isolated. This elite therefore has a perception of the public as an object with which one engages. That itself tells me straightaway that when we use the word ‘public’, we’re almost invariably not talking about the public in the way that it’s been historically understood.

In many respects, the public has become a project, a project of inclusion. New Labour loved having these projects. So every museum would start saying ‘we’re showing fine art, but we’re also spending millions of pounds on including the public’. The moment the public becomes a project that you seek to include artificially, it acquires a fantasy-like character. Hence, virtually everything we say about public engagement – counting the numbers, checking whether the voter turnout has gone up by two per cent since last time and so on – all represent this kind of fantasy of trying to create a link that really isn’t there. Just because you vote at a particular time, just because you come to a meeting, this does not involve or imply the reality of a public.

Historically, a public referred to a group of people with an idea of themselves as distinct and independent, as having something in common, and a sense that it had some power and influence. So therefore the idea of empowering the public is a contradiction in terms: power is gained, not granted. When you ‘empower’ people, you’re not empowering them, you’re enfeebling them.

Today, it seems that almost every form of public engagement – of public relations – is a kind of impression management. People make a lot of money out of it, but it really doesn’t bear upon everyday life. I think the problem is a cultural one and that’s the domain we should be addressing.

The cultural problem that we have today is something that Machiavelli identified over 500 years ago. He grasped that the strength of a body politic is determined by the extent to which it was infused by public spirit. As far as Machiavelli was concerned, a real public spirit accounted for the strength of the Roman Empire – the Roman republic specifically – and also the incredible things that were going on in Florence, Sienna and so on during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. And Machiavelli made the point that public spirit presupposes a set of virtues, forms of behaviour that you expect people to have as part and parcel of everyday life. These virtues would include devotion, courage, patriotic conviction, risk-taking and so on. (That all this seems so terribly old-fashioned now is part of the problem.)

I would argue that almost every single virtue that makes for public spirit is stigmatised by our society. Having recently been listening to people’s recollections at the inquiry into the 7/7 bombings about what happened that terrible day in London in 2005, what really struck me was that you had stories of people wanting to do things for the hurt and injured but who were being told by fire officers that for health and safety reasons they could not go anywhere near these people.

Just imagine: here are all these people, they’re trying to help others, they’re trying to do the right thing, but to do so they have to adhere to a very clear process. All these processes, all these procedures, serve to displace public interaction. They make public virtue dependent on adhering to different codes of conduct.

This displacement of public virtue happens in all sorts of ways. Just this morning, for instance, I heard yet another plea for volunteering – I almost felt like throwing up, I’ve heard it so many times. Now call me old-fashioned, but when I was young you volunteered because you believed in something. You wanted to help people; you wanted, for instance, to give blood. You didn’t do volunteering because it looked good on your CV. So, while volunteering certainly has a virtuous potential, it has been turned into a process that you adhere to much in the way that you clock on to a job.

An example of this stigmatisation of virtue relates to something I feel strongly about, namely, devotion and care. During the course of writing a book a few years ago called Therapy Culture, I noticed that aspects of devotion and care had become increasingly stigmatised, often being expressed and defined as a marker of a disease. In fact, any manifestation of love, friendship, loyalty or altruism was potentially labelled as a form of addictive behaviour. Altruistic behaviour – which hardly seems a bad thing – is actually diagnosed as compulsive helping. According to this definition, compulsive helpers disregard their own needs and feelings and focus on helping another person. That kind of sums up our current situation with regards to public virtue: in a different era, in a different society, this so-called disease would be seen as a positive thing.

Rhetorically, responsibility and loyalty are still upheld as public virtues, of course. But in practice these are undermined, time and time again. Something happened to me recently that made me think about this in a way that I hadn’t before. Last year, my mother died. While she was in hospital, I used to go to visit her all the time. And the very first time I went to visit her, I introduced myself to the nurse: ‘I’m Frank Furedi, I’m Clara’s son.’ The woman looked up at me and said, ‘You mean you’re her “carer”’. ‘No, her son’, I responded. But she was insistent: ‘No, you are her carer.’

It was very interesting that she used the word carer. This kind of terminology displaces the idea that there’s some kind of spontaneous and informal relationship with a bureaucratic typology. It reminds me of the way in which very elementary forms of compassion, of human interaction, have been pretty much blocked out altogether.

For that reason, the public can never have the virtues we want the public to have because we’ve done such a brilliant job at undermining those virtues. It is worth recalling that Machiavelli and other humanists feared the professionalisation of public duty. If you look at their writings, time and again they point to the danger of their city states relying on mercenaries instead of the services provided by citizens. From their perspective, the employment of mercenaries absolved the people from taking responsibility for the future of their community and served as instruments of the corrosion of public duty. That’s more or less what the bureaucratisation of public life has achieved today. It leads to a world where even family responsibility can become outsourced to ‘carers’. In such circumstances the public can’t do anything until a bureaucrat ticks the right box.

So we need a change in cultural attitudes towards the public.

When I was in Australia this summer during the election, the prime minister, Julia Gillard – who I don’t particularly like, but who has her strengths – decided that she would set up a citizens’ assembly to discuss climate change. ‘Why not?’, I thought, ‘this is a good thing’. After all, it affects the citizens, so why shouldn’t they get to discuss it?

But climate change experts opposed to the idea were saying ‘these are citizens, they are not experts on climate change’. The environmentalists were even worse. They were saying, ‘we don’t want citizens because ordinary folk are selfish, they only care about guzzling gas, they want to have big carbon footprints. So we want a proper committee of experts.’ And in the end, when the assembly was set up, Gillard had basically got rid of the idea of an assembly of normal people and had stuffed it with the experts instead.

In a press release she explained that instead of a committee of people, we have a group of experts who have a greater understanding of the challenge of climate change. ‘While the commission will set up a website’, she continued, ‘there are no plans for a major advertising campaign’. The committee concluded that the proposal for a citizens’ assembly should not be implemented and that there would be other ways of harnessing public dialogue and engagement in the science of climate change and engagement in questioning the price of carbon.

This illustrates how the language of public engagement, public dialogue, public inclusion are self-consciously used as a means to push people away. And I don’t blame Gillard or any other politician. I think politicians are in a very difficult situation. It’s not their fault.

What I do have a problem with is the fact we don’t recognise that ordinary people have been silenced, that we’ve forced people to censor themselves in terms of what they actually believe and what they think. And most importantly, instead of culturally validating people’s active, positive side – all the good things about human beings – what we’ve done is subjugate them to the most boring, flattened out form of bureaucratic rule. As long as that’s the case, any form of public engagement will simply be a caricature of itself.

SOURCE





Gingerbread 'person', the PC pudding: Now even biscuits can't escape Britain's politically correct brigade

In the nursery rhyme, the Gingerbread Man fled from the clutches of an old woman and her husband. But now he has been cornered by an even more unforgiving foe – political correctness. Council bureaucrats have stripped gingerbread men of their gender and renamed them gingerbread ‘persons’ on menus for 400 primary schools.

Parents in Lancashire were astonished when they discovered the change. ‘It is absolutely ridiculous,’ one mother said. ‘Someone has obviously taken the effort to change this and it is almost offensive. ‘I am all for anti-discrimination but this is a pudding. The gingerbread man is a character from a rhyme in a book, for goodness sake.’

Laura Midgley, of the Campaign Against Political Correctness, added: ‘It is totally ridiculous political correctness, nobody wants to talk about gingerbread people. They are what they are. ‘It is not just an innocent mistake. Whoever did it, I hope they will think long and hard about it. ‘If these sorts of things go unchallenged, they become the norm.’

The wording went out on the new autumn-winter weekly menu provided by the Lancashire School Meals Service. Preston MP Mark Hendrick described the change as ‘daft’.

The outcry has since forced officials into an embarrassing U-turn. They now claim renaming the biscuits was a mistake and that their gender will be reinstated as soon as possible. Last night a spokesman for Lancashire County Council confirmed the gingerbread man would be back on school menus after Christmas.

It is not the first time the gingerbread man’s gender has come under threat from the PC brigade. In 2006 branches of Bakers Oven in the West Midlands changed the name of gingerbread men to gingerbread persons, but reversed the decision after opposition from the public.

It follows a series of similar decisions by councils nationwide, including the renaming of school dinner favourite Spotted Dick to Spotted Richard last year by officials in North Wales. They said they were fed up with customers’ childish sniggering.

SOURCE






Palestinian held for Facebook criticism of Islam‏

No free speech in the Muslim world

A mysterious blogger who set off an uproar in the Arab world by claiming he was God and hurling insults at the Prophet Muhammad is now behind bars — caught in a sting that used Facebook to track him down.

The case of the unlikely apostate, a shy barber from this backwater West Bank town, is highlighting the limits of tolerance in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority — and illustrating a new trend by authorities in the Arab world to mine social media for evidence.

Residents of Qalqiliya say they had no idea that Walid Husayin — the 26-year-old son of a Muslim scholar — was leading a double life. Known as a quiet man who prayed with his family each Friday and spent his evenings working in his father's barbershop, Husayin was secretly posting anti-religion rants on the Internet during his free time.

Now, he faces a potential life prison sentence on heresy charges for "insulting the divine essence." Many in this conservative Muslim town say he should be killed for renouncing Islam, and even family members say he should remain behind bars for life.

"He should be burned to death," said Abdul-Latif Dahoud, a 35-year-old Qalqiliya resident. The execution should take place in public "to be an example to others," he added.

Over several years, Husayin is suspected of posting arguments in favor of atheism on English and Arabic blogs, where he described the God of Islam as having the attributes of a "primitive Bedouin." He called Islam a "blind faith that grows and takes over people's minds where there is irrationality and ignorance."

If that wasn't enough, he is also suspected of creating three Facebook groups in which he sarcastically declared himself God and ordered his followers, among other things, to smoke marijuana in verses that spoof the Muslim holy book, the Quran. At its peak, Husayin's Arabic-language blog had more than 70,000 visitors, overwhelmingly from Arab countries.

His Facebook groups elicited hundreds of angry comments, detailed death threats and the formation of more than a dozen Facebook groups against him, including once called "Fight the blasphemer who said 'I am God.'"

Husayin is the first to be arrested in the West Bank for his religious views, said Tayseer Tamimi, the former chief Islamic judge in the area.

The Western-backed Palestinian Authority is among the more religiously liberal Arab governments in the region. It is dominated by secular elites and has frequently cracked down on hardline Muslims and activists connected to its conservative Islamic rival, Hamas.

Husayin's high public profile and prickly style, however, left authorities no choice but to take action.

Husayin used a fake name on his English and Arabic-language blogs and Facebook pages. After his mother discovered articles on atheism on his computer, she canceled his Internet connection in hopes that he would change his mind.

Instead, he began going to an Internet cafe — a move that turned out to be a costly mistake. The owner, Ahmed Abu-Asal, said the blogger aroused suspicion by spending up to seven hours a day in a corner booth. After several months, a cafe worker supplied captured snapshots of his Facebook pages to Palestinian intelligence officials.

Officials monitored him for several weeks and then arrested him on Oct. 31 as he sat in the cafe, said Abu-Asal.

Husayin's family has been devastated by the arrest. On a recent day, his father stood sadly in the family barber shop, cluttered with colorful towels and posters of men in outdated haircuts. He requested that a reporter not write about his son to avoid being publicly shamed.

Two cousins attributed the writings to depression, saying Husayin was desperate to find better work. Requesting anonymity because of the shame the incident, they said Husayin's mother wants him to remain in prison for life — both to restore the family's honor and to protect him from vigilantes.

The case is the second high-profile arrest connected in the West Bank connected to Facebook activity. In late September, a reporter for a news station sympathetic to Hamas was arrested and detained for more than a month after he was tagged in a Facebook image that insulted the Palestinian president.

Gaza's Hamas rulers also stalk Facebook pages of suspected dissenters, said Palestinian rights activist Mustafa Ibrahim. He said Internet cafe owners are forced to monitor customers' online activity, and alert intelligence officials if they see anything critical of the militant group or that violates Hamas' stern interpretation of Islam.

In neighboring Syria, Facebook is blocked altogether. And in Egypt, a blogger was charged with atheism in 2007 after intelligence officials monitored his posts.

Husayin has not been charged but remains in detention, said Palestinian security spokesman Adnan Damiri. He could face a life sentence if he's found guilty, depending on how harshly the judge thinks he attacked Islam and how widely his views were broadcast, said Islamic scholar Tamimi.

Even so, a small minority has questioned whether the government went too far. Zainab Rashid, a liberal Palestinian commentator, wrote in an online opinion piece that Husayin has made an important point: "that criticizing religious texts for their (intellectual) weakness can only be combatted by ... oppression, prison and execution."

SOURCE






Big Brother society is bigger than ever: New technology is ‘undermining privacy by stealth’

The march of Britain’s ‘Surveillance Society’ was exposed last night in a devastating report. Experts warned that a raft of new technologies were intruding ever further into private lives. And legal protections were struggling to keep up with the ‘Big Brother’ onslaught, the Surveillance Studies Network said.

The academics praised the Coalition for ditching ID cards and some state databases but they identified a string of threats including:

* Social networking sites that have ‘exponentially’ increased their holdings of personal data

* Body scanners at airports that invite ‘voyeuristic opportunism’

* Automatic numberplate recognition cameras

* CCTV cameras in schools that measure teacher performance

* Aerial police drones that are ‘more pervasive than CCTV’

* GPS devices that can track the movements of staff such as cleaners to within a few yards

* Software that allows users to track their friends but which could be hacked by outsiders

* Databases that sort individuals by their ethnicity or social class.

The network’s last report – in 2006 – warned that Britain was sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Yesterday it raised the alarm over surreptitious and unaccountable surveillance practices and weak legal protections.

‘Much surveillance also goes beyond the limits of what is tolerable in a society based on the rule of law and human rights, one of which is the right to privacy, the report said. ‘Some technologies have gone from being a subject of speculation to being in mainstream use in many different areas.

‘Given the relatively low level of public and political understanding of technologies such as databases, it is too easy for functions to creep surreptitiously without exposure to widespread comment, debate, or procedures for deciding on the acceptability and accountability or uses.’

The network said that numberplate cameras were first sold as a crime fighting tool that would allow police to track serious criminals. Now however they are being used to follow political protesters and hand out fines for minor parking and traffic infringements.

The network called for compensation for individuals placed under unlawful police surveillance and a requirement that those being watched are told afterwards.

Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said: ‘Many of the new laws that come into force every year in the UK have implications for privacy at their heart. ‘My concern is that after they are enacted there is no one looking back to see whether they are being used as intended, or whether the new powers were indeed justified in practice. ‘One example of this is the use of covert CCTV surveillance by local councils to monitor parents in school catchment area disputes under powers designed to assist in crime prevention and detection.’

A Government spokesman said: ‘The new government believes there has been too much intrusion into the private lives of people in this country. ‘We have put civil liberties at the heart of our policies and our first piece of legislation was to scrap ID cards. ‘We are committed to rolling back big government and state intrusion.’

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 or 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 November, 2010

Nation states are dead: EU chief says the belief that countries can stand alone is a ‘lie and an illusion’

What a non-sequitur! Of course countries cannot stand alone. From ancient times trade has been essential to prosperity. But nation states have existed from ancient times too!

The age of the nation state is over and the idea that countries can stand alone is an ‘illusion’ and a ‘lie’, the EU president believes. In one of the most open proclamations of the goal of a European superstate since the heyday of Jacques Delors, Herman Van Rompuy went on to denounce Eurosceptism as the greatest threat to peace.

Tory backbenchers condemned the inflammatory comments in the speech made by Mr Van Rompuy to mark the 21st anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. They said it proved that David Cameron would have a battle on his hands if he is to prevent extra powers being handed to Brussels.

Last night 23 Conservative MPs, including former leadership contender David Davis, rebelled in the Commons by demanding a referendum if the Lisbon Treaty is amended – even if ministers argue the changes do not affect the UK. Their call was defeated.

Mr Van Rompuy’s speech in the German capital told his audience that ‘the time of the homogenous nation state is over’. He added that the ‘danger’ of Euroscepticism was spreading beyond the confines of countries such as Britain and was becoming a stronger force across the whole continent. ‘We have together to fight the danger of a new Euroscepticism,’ he declared. ‘This is no longer the monopoly of a few countries. ‘In every member state, there are people who believe their country can survive alone in the globalised world. It is more than an illusion – it is a lie.’

The Belgian equated Euroscepticism with fear, which eventually leads to war – echoing former French president Francois Mitterrand’s famous phrase that ‘nationalism is war’. ‘The biggest enemy of Europe today is fear,’ he said. ‘Fear leads to egoism, egoism leads to nationalism, and nationalism leads to war. ‘Today’s nationalism is often not a positive feeling of pride in one’s own identity, but a negative feeling of apprehension of the others.’ [So Hitler was motivated by fear?? What a lot of tosh! It's just pop psychology]

In a strong defence of the euro, he said the recession would have been far worse if France still had its franc and Germany still had its mark. Again employing the imagery of war, he said: ‘Just imagine the big recession of 2008/09 with the old currencies. It would have resulted in currency turmoil and the end of the single market. A currency war always ends in protectionism.’ [Rubbish! The damage would have been limited to a few mismanaged countries without the euro. As it is, even Germany was pulled into the mess]

And in a section about the fall of the Berlin Wall, he praised the ‘statesmen of 1989 – Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterrand, Jacques Delors’. There was no mention of Margaret Thatcher, who as British prime minister at the time argued against closer integration.

Last night UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: ‘Rumpy Pumpy is unfit to govern. This man is an overpaid catastrophe who wants to abolish our nation. The only non-nation is Belgium, his own country.

Backbench Tories warned such views were now on the rise in Brussels. Conservative MP Douglas Carswell said: ‘At last we see the real intentions of the Eurocrats. If that’s what Mr Van Rompuy believes, he should at least get elected by someone before he says it.’

SOURCE






Refuse jobs and lose benefits for THREE years, workshy Brits told

Benefits claimants who refuse to take jobs will be stripped of their handouts for up to three years in the most far-reaching welfare reforms for decades. David Cameron today declares that a ‘life on benefits’ will be brought to an end by draconian sanctions.

A welfare package being unveiled this morning by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith includes a sliding scale of mandatory penalties for 1.6million on unemployment benefit. Anyone who refuses to accept a job, fails to apply for a position suggested by an adviser or does not complete a period of community work will see their handouts stopped altogether.

The first offence will see Jobseeker’s Allowance, worth £64.45 a week, automatically withdrawn for three months. The second offence will mean a loss of benefits for six months and the third for three years.

Currently, job centre staff can withdraw handouts from those who fail to cooperate for up to 26 weeks, but the sanction is discretionary and almost never applied. The new regime will mean professionals who lose their jobs could be forced to take menial posts or face losing benefits.

While the threat of having benefits axed for three years is symbolic of the Government’s tough stance it is unlikely to affect many people and will be tough to enforce. Critics will point out that claims of crackdowns from previous governments have failed to get to grips with the soaring benefits bill.

The sanctions, which will apply from day one of a benefit claim, are part of a sweeping Welfare White Paper which represents the biggest shake-up of the system since the foundation of the modern welfare state after the Second World War.

The Government is offering the jobless a ‘35p in the pound’ guarantee to sweep away disincentives to work. Currently, millions reckon it is not worth their while taking a job or working more hours because means testing ensures their extra earnings are wiped out by the loss of handouts. Some lose as much as £1 for every extra £1 they earn.

Mr Duncan Smith will scrap most benefits and replace them with a ‘universal credit’, which will ensure that claimants keep at least 35p in every extra £1 they earn from 2013.

Senior Government sources claim that 2.5million of the poorest people will be better off as a result. They say the number of workless households in Britain will be slashed by 300,000. The Prime Minister, who is in South Korea for the G20 summit, said: ‘It simply has to pay to work. You can’t have a situation where if someone gets out of bed and goes and does a hard day’s work they end up worse off.

‘That’s not fair and it sends entirely the wrong message – both to those on benefits and to the hard-working majority who are being asked to support them. ‘We are going to get to grips with the indefensible anomalies in the current benefit system and create a much simpler, fairer approach.’

The new sanctions will require legislation, but ministers say they should be in place by next year, well ahead of the introduction of the universal credit in 2013.

The Daily Mail has learned, however, that the introduction of the universal credit could be disrupted because the computer system needed to operate it will not be ready until 2014.

Ministers hope to reduce the £5billion a year bill for fraud and error as the benefits system is integrated with the PAYE tax system, enabling officials to spot changes in income which affect entitlement to benefits. But Treasury documents show that the ‘real time’ software required to operate the new system will not be in place until April 2014.

Privately, ministers admit that gathering all the information on each benefit claimant in one place will be much harder without the system up and running, but they say it will still be possible.

Sources have also revealed that the total cost of the 35p guarantee could be higher than the Treasury has budgeted for in the long term. Ministers have revealed that the cost of the new scheme will be £2.1billion. But ministerial sources say it could go higher after 2015.

Labour work and pensions spokesman Douglas Alexander said: ‘If the Government gets this right we will support them, but the Government will not get more people off benefits and into work without there being work available.’

SOURCE







Liberal Lies About the Death Penalty

In July 2007, two career criminals, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, broke into the Connecticut home of Dr. William Petit. The pair beat Dr. Petit nearly to death with a baseball bat and tied him up in the basement, saying “if you move, we’ll put two bullets in you.” They then set upon his wife, Jennifer, and two daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela.

Komisarjevsky savagely raped Michaela in her bed, pausing only to take cell phone pictures of the terrified little girl. After forcing her to withdraw $15,000 from her bank account, Hayes raped and strangled Jennifer in the living room. Then, as police surrounded the house, they bound the girls to the beds, doused them with gasoline, and lit the house on fire.

Yesterday, Steven Hayes was sentenced to death by lethal injection in a state that has only executed one person since 1960. For most people, the only shame is that his death won’t come quick enough.

Not so for death penalty opponents, who spend more time bleating for monstrous criminals than for their victims. When Hayes is finally strapped to that gurney, there will no doubt be candlelight vigils, where criminal-coddlers will spout canards about capital punishment.

We know what they’ll say. They’ll say the death penalty does not deter murder. We don’t know that, since it’s never actually been studied. This is a statement of personal belief, not fact.

What we do know is that the murder rate soared when the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in 1972. In 1960, the U.S. murder rate was 5.1 per 100,000 people. By late 70s, it had nearly doubled, reaching 10.2 in 1980. The U.S. government didn’t execute a single person that year. The murder rate only began to fall as more capital sentences were handed down in the 1990s. By 2009, it had plummeted to an all-time low of 5 per 100,000. 52 people were executed last year.

They’ll say the death penalty is the easy way out for murderers. While a few might feel that way, most of them spend years filing appeals. They resist execution until their legal options run out—which is why it often takes decades to execute a death row inmate.

They’ll say the death penalty is racist, so we need a moratorium. To hear them tell it, Southern juries would be stringing innocent blacks from trees if the ACLU didn’t keep them in check.

Tell that to the parents of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom, who were carjacked and murdered in Tennessee by four black thugs in 2007. The killers raped Chris, shot him three times, and lit his body on fire on a set of railroad tracks. Over the next several hours, Channon was raped multiple times and had bleach poured down her throat. She was then “hogged-tied” and stuffed in a trash can to suffocate.

The DNA of two defendants, Lemaricus Davidson and Letalvis Cobbins, was found on the victims. All four admitted to witnessing and participating in various aspects of the crime, including raping the victims and holding them at gunpoint. They showed no remorse. When asked if he ever thought of sparing Channon’s life, defendant George Thomas replied, “F--- that white bitch, she don’t mean nothing to me.”

Only one defendant, Lemaricus Davidson, received the death penalty. The other defendants claimed he initiated the carjacking and ultimately stuffed Channon in the trash can. Davidson was tried by a black prosecutor and sentenced to death by a multi-racial jury. Rather than wantonly sending blacks to the death chamber, the juries reserved the ultimate punishment for an obviously guilty ringleader. Unfair? Racist? You be the judge.

Finally, they’ll say the death penalty is barbaric. If it’s barbaric to execute someone who has been granted an attorney, formally tried, convicted, and had his conviction upheld after decades of appeals, I’m happy to live in a nation of savages. Is death by lethal injection too cruel a punishment for a man who raped a woman before suffocating her in a trash can? Or a man who burned a child alive in her bed, surrounded by stuffed animals?

Only if you have no sense of justice. For the Petit family, justice has finally been served.

SOURCE





Victory over a stupid and oppressive law in Australia

It was an unmitigated attack on freedom of association that was wide open to abuse by unscrupulous cops. It's a sad day when we have to have bikies standing up for our individual liberties

THE South Australian Government must go back to the drawing board with its anti-bikie law after the High Court's ruling it is unconstitutional, a lawyer for the Finks bikie gang says.

The High Court today declared as unconstitutional sections of SA's controversial laws banning gang members from associating.

The majority judgment throws into doubt a key aspect of South Australia's Serious and Organised Crime Control Act, which allows restrictions to be placed on gang members without a court having the power to review the evidence.

The High Court has sided with the Finks Motorcycle Club, upholding a ruling by the SA Supreme Court in 2009.

Finks lawyer Craig Caldicott said the state government should reconsider the legislation. "This legislation is flawed and, clearly, they have to go back to the drawing board," Mr Caldicott said. "We have been saying from the start there are better ways of doing all of this.

"What they have done is decided that they will try to enforce draconian laws that the High Court has ruled invalid."

Following today's judgment, the South Australian government has been ordered to pay costs to Finks motorcycle gang members Sandro Totani and Donald Hudson. [Great!]

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 or 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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10 November, 2010

Britain's Islam Channel rapped for advocating marital rape and calling women prostitutes

Rather amazing that a British agency cracked down on this but no penalty is mentioned

A Muslim religious channel that allowed presenters to condone marital rape and call women who wear perfume in mosques 'prostitutes' has been censured by the TV watchdog. In one programme, the host told viewers that it was 'not strange' and 'not such a big problem' for a man to force his wife to have sex.

Ofcom ruled the Islam Channel, which broadcasts on Sky, breached the broadcasting code in five programmes between May 2008 and October 2009.

A phone-in show in May 2008, in which a female caller asked if she had the right to hit a violent husband back, was deemed in breach of the code. The presenter at one point stated: 'In Islam we have no right to hit the woman in a way that damages her eye or damages her tooth or damages her face or makes her ugly. 'Maximum what you can do, you can see the pen over here, in my hand, this kind of stick can be used just to make her feel that you are not happy with her.'

Ofcom said it considered the presenter was clear some form of physical punishment was acceptable.

A discussion programme in April 2009 on sexual relations within marriage was found to have breached guidelines, as was a programme in October 2009 in which it was said women who wore perfume outside the home could be declared 'a prostitute'.

In a submission to the report, the Islam Channel said it 'does not condone or encourage violence towards women under any circumstances' and 'does not condone or encourage marital rape'.

Two further programmes in October 2009 relating to aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were found to have breached the code relating to impartiality in political matters.

Ofcom previously imposed a statutory sanction on the channel in 2007 for various breaches. The findings followed an inquiry begun after allegations were laid against the TV station by a moderate Islamic think tank, the Quilliam Foundation.

The Islam Channel, launched six years ago, has been accused in the past of giving airtime to extreme views, including those of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group that Tony Blair said he wanted to ban in the aftermath of the 2005 London transport bombings.

SOURCE





British shop assistant banned from wearing Remembrance day symbol because 'it is not part of the uniform'

The claim that a poppy detracts from the "look" of a person is quite offensive



A top fashion store banned a shop assistant from wearing a poppy at work - because it was 'not part of her uniform'. Harriet Phipps, 18, pinned the poppy to her clothes as a mark of respect to the countless servicemen and women who have been killed or injured fighting for their country. But bosses at Hollister, which is part of the trendy Abercrombie & Fitch chain, ordered the teenager to remove the tribute.

Miss Phipps works as a 'model' at the store in Southampton, Hampshire, wearing the shop's latest fashion items to give customers an idea of how the clothes look on. But when she wore a Remembrance Day poppy managers told her to remove it.

Furious Miss Phipps said: 'I think it's disgusting, I think it's awful. 'I feel it's very important, it is only for two weeks so it's not permanent. 'It is a personal issue and I feel very strongly about it - I have a friend who is serving in Afghanistan and another friend, a girl, who is going out to fight there, as well as my granddad who fought in the war. 'They said that because it's not uniform or company policy, I am not allowed to wear it.

'I'm what is known as a model, we have to wear a uniform key look - we get a selection of clothes which we have to buy and wear to work. 'We provide an image of what the clothes would look like for the customers and because the poppy is not uniform I was told I should not wear it.'

Miss Phipps, who moved from Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire, to work at the store was first told to remove the poppy last Thursday and then a second time today when she flouted the ban.

A member of management at the store declined to comment.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: 'This poppy ban is outrageous. 'Wearing a poppy brings the whole nation together to honour those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. 'Poppies may not be cool enough for Hollister or Abercrombie & Fitch, but they suit the rest of us very well.'

The Abercrombie & Fitch group is infamous for its strict staff dress code. Last year it paid £9,000 in compensation to a student with a prosthetic left arm who claimed she was banished to the stockroom of one of the firm's flagship shops.

Riam Dean, 22, from Greenford, West London, said she was banned from the floor of the Savile Row store because she did not fit its policy on how staff should look. A tribunal ruled that Miss Dean was unlawfully harassed over her disability and subsequently dismissed without good reason.

On the first day she was fitted for her uniform - a polo shirt and jeans - and was given permission to wear a cardigan to cover the join between her upper arm and prosthetic limb. However, staff repeatedly told her to take the cardigan off as it was against the company's 'look policy'.

SOURCE





Oklahoma: Ban on Shariah Law blocked

A popular new law that bars Oklahoma courts from considering Islamic law, or Shariah, when deciding cases was put on hold Monday after a prominent Muslim in the state won a temporary restraining order in federal court.

Two state legislators were quick to blast the judge's ruling and the Oklahoma attorney general, who they said did not stand up to support the new law.

U.S. District Court Judge Vicki Miles-LeGrange ruled that the measure, which passed by a large margin in last Tuesday's elections, would be suspended until a hearing on Nov. 22, when she will listen to arguments on whether the court's temporary injunction should become permanent.

"Today's ruling is a reminder of the strength of our nation's legal system and the protections it grants to religious minorities," said Muneer Awad, executive director of Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Oklahoma, who filed the suit last Thursday, claiming the law violated his constitutional rights.

"We are humbled by this opportunity to show our fellow Oklahomans that Muslims are their neighbors and that we are committed to upholding the U.S. Constitution and promoting the benefits of a pluralistic society," Awad said.

Shariah is found in the Koran and is the basis of law in most Islamic countries, though its implementation varies widely. It has been used in Iran and Somalia, among other places, to condone harsh punishments like amputations and stoning.

Supporters of the Oklahoma ballot initiative, which passed with 70 percent of the vote, would not comment on the impact of the ruling. But state Sen. Anthony Sykes, who co-authored the measure, charged that the judge ruled as she did because the state’s attorney general, Drew Edmondson, failed to respond to the suit.

“The attorney general failed to file a response,” Sykes said. “I am afraid that this might get written in stone that shouldn’t be because the attorney general is leaving and a new one is coming in.” Calls to Edmondson’s office were not returned.

Oklahoma state Rep. Rex Duncan, who co-sponsored the bill, said he hadn’t seen the judge's written ruling yet, but he was disappointed that “her words from the bench indicated she had completely embraced the plaintiff’s arguments.” “They were pretty extraordinary statements from the judge,” he said.

Duncan and Sykes both said the state should have challenged whether Awad had the standing to bring the case. “As far as we know, he flew into here from Georgia just to make the case," Duncan said. "We don’t think he is an Oklahoma resident or plans to stay. We don’t think he had standing.”

Duncan and others who pushed for the measure argued that the ban “will constitute a pre-emptive strike against Shariah law coming to Oklahoma." He said England has embraced 85 Shariah law courts and warned voters that "while Oklahoma is still able to defend itself against this sort of hideous invasion, we should do so."

Opponents argued that the measure was unnecessary because state judges have no reason to rely on Islamic law. Most of the state’s newspapers opposed the measure.

At an impromptu news conference following Monday's ruling, CAIR officials called on the sponsors of the ballot measure to repudiate hate messages they said have been received by Muslim institutions in Oklahoma following the law's passage.

SOURCE





My name is Daniel Pearl

A speech before the ADL by by Pilar Rahola

Without doubt, he must be afraid. He faces the camera, but... where is his gaze aimed? Perhaps towards his family, his ancestral memory, his identity... or perhaps he is looking beyond, towards the broken future, the woman he loves, the son he will never know... His last words...

“My name is Daniel Pearl. I am a Jewish American from Encino , California USA ”. Today is February 1st, 2002, he is 38 years old and is about to be brutally murdered. “My father's Jewish, my mother's Jewish, I'm Jewish…”

The Yemeni that will decapitate him will take almost two minutes to cut off his head. He will begin very slowly, under the ear, to reap the vocal chords and prevent the shout. “My family follows Judaism. We've made numerous family visits to Israel …”

From this point on, the brutal narration of a murder whose details, masterly described by Bernard Henry-Levi, would horrify even Dante's own Inferno. The victim turned into a metaphor of the beauty of life. The assassin, symbol of the human being devoid of soul, of the defeat of humanity. Who has turned him into a monster? “Back in the town of Bnei Brak there is a street named after my great grandfather Chaim Pearl who is one of the founders of the town”. And all will be over. His hopes, his loves, his dreams... “My name is Daniel Pearl…” And the executioner will triumphantly display his cleft head before the camera, as a trophy.

Thank you. First of all thank you for this moving day, which commits me beyond doubt, beyond frailty and beyond fear. To be granted the award that bears the name of Daniel Pearl is more than an extraordinary honour, it is a duty.

My name is Pilar Rahola, I was born in the old Sepharad, in Catalonia , from a Catholic family, I consider myself a left-winger and I am a journalist. But as a civil-rights fighter, and as a journalist who searches for reported truth, my name is also Daniel Pearl, I was born in Encino and I am Jewish. All those of us who love civilization, those of us who conceive the world under the values of modernity, are and will always be Daniel Pearl.

Because beyond our ideological, religious or cultural differences, we are part of a civic inheritance which commits us to democracy. And they have declared war against that inheritance. Daniel Pearl's assassins do not only decapitate helpless victims, murder hundreds in the world's trains, or kill thousands in the cities' skyscrapers. Above all they try to behead the principles of freedom.

Daniel Pearl's death, as do the deaths of all those who have fallen under the insanity of Islamic Fundamentalism, concerns us all, and not only for the sake of compassion. It concerns us for it is a bullet that is aimed at each one of us, regardless of our origin. Every woman that breathes with her own lungs and conquests her future, every man who loves culture and progress, every child who is educated to be tolerant and free, every God which doesn't hate but rather loves, every one of them has a bullet with their name written on it. We are faced with a new totalitarianism, natural heir to Stalinism and Nazism, as horrendous as both of them, and perhaps more lethal. The question now is, as it always was: are we doing the right thing to defend ourselves?

I am only a labourer of ideas, and it is not up to me to define the intelligence strategies that fight this ideology. Yet I uphold my critical spirit regarding many political and military decisions , and I do not always like our leaders, nor their actions.

However, it is also true that the Islamofascist ideology has left us baffled and frightened, and has shown our weaknesses. Today, free societies are technologically more advanced, militarily stronger, and are more intercommunicated. But our enemy is also stronger than ever. It is the Global Jihad, with the brain and heart in the 8th century, but connected by satellite with 21st century technology. Look at Iran , how it has laughed at the world and moves on, inexorably, towards the fearful nuclear domination.

An Islamic Hitler with a nuclear bomb. Who can or wants to stop him? A useless UN, incapable of reacting, beyond rhetoric and bureaucracy? Poor Eleanor Roosevelt, should she wake up and see into what has become her dream of the League of Nations! Can Europe stop it, trapped in its economic ambitions, its infighting and its political incapacity? If the UN doesn't know what is its rôle in the world, Europe doesn't even know what it is itself. Will countries such as China or Russia , countries which are rather allies to this madness, stop it? Will the USA , which every day seems more lost regarding its own rôle in the international arena, stop it? Sincerely, the world's only hope seems to be Israel , which, as it defends itself from a monster, defends us all. Dear ADL friends, those of us who believe in a free world have to trust in Eretz Israel: a lighthouse in the heart of darkness.

And beyond Iran , it is also evident that we are unable to stop the ideological phenomenon which sustains Global Islamic Fundamentalism. How many youths, in this precise instant, are reading jihadist texts? How many thousands are being indoctrinated in hatred of the West and in a renewed anti-Semitism, in the schools of “friendly” countries? How many, in our cities' mosques, are nursed with contempt of democracy? How many learn to love their God, hating their neighbour? How many are, right now, using the invention that a Jew helped to develop, Internet, to transmit their deadly ideas? Look at the World. Millions of enslaved women, subjugated by medieval laws, before international indifference. Millions of children who live in enormously rich dictatorships, condemned to poverty and educated as fanatic automatons. Who will prevent their tragedy? In Europe itself, the advance of fundamentalism is enormous, and our democracies seem incapable of stopping it. And it must be remembered that the problem is not a religion, nor a culture, nor a God. The problem is the totalitarian abuse of God.

There is, certainly, an Islam of life and of good harmony with others. But in the World today, there also exists an Islam which is very ill, and that, in its delirium of planetary domination, drags millions of people to their own perdition. So it's not about a clash of civilizations nor of religions. It's about civilization versus barbarity. And within civilization are all those Muslims murdered in busses, trains and in the market queues; the women who struggle for their freedom in the petrodollar dictatorships; the Iranian students, the dissidents... Within barbarity are Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, Jihad Islamiya, the beheaders of people, and those imams who feed their flock with hatred in the World's mosques... The problem isn't the Muslim religion, but the totalitarian ideology that shouts “Hurray for death” while praying to Allah. An ideology that leads, in its macabre death toll, to the death of thousands .

Let us be conscious of something tragic. Despite the mirage of our superiority in all fields – military, political, moral – , while we are not losing the battle, neither are we winning it. It's as if we were at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, when Communism seemed to be a liberating ideology. Or in the 1930's, when Hitler only seemed to be a stupid clown, and Chamberlain honoured him. Then, as now, and before the beginning of a global menace, our capacity to respond is poor, timid and erratic. And in some cases, it's directly collaborationist.

Allow me to talk of my planet, the planet of ideas. Intellectuals, journalists, writers, people of thought, are they up to the historic moment they are living? And the leftist groups, who so noisily criticise democratic countries, yet remain silently absent in the struggle against the great tyrannies, are they? No. They are not up to the historic moment.

I take advantage of your enormous prestige, the ADL's prestige, pioneers in the defence of civil rights, and I take advantage of the extraordinary award you place in my hands, borrowing Emile Zola's words, to elevate a sad, but direct, “J'accuse”! (I accuse!). Today most intellectuals and journalists remain deaf, blind and mute before the most serious threats that freedom suffers. And some of their strident proclamations, are the most efficient help that this totalitarian ideology has in the free world.

I accuse journalists and intellectuals of remaining silent before the barbaric oppression of millions of women, condemned to live under medieval laws which amputate them as human beings. No demonstrations, no Obama declaration, no boycott, nothing. These victims interest nobody, perhaps because Israelis or Americans cannot be blamed for their misfortune. And only anti-Americanism and anti-Israelism mobilizes their selective ire. I accuse journalists and intellectuals of remaining silent before the permanent slaughter of hundreds of Muslims, victims of Islamic bombs, whose plight interests nobody because one cannot put the blame on Jews nor on Americans. I accuse journalists and intellectuals of criminalizing Israel to the point of delirium, and of helping to create a mentality that is understanding with Palestinian terrorism.

I accuse them of the new anti-Semitism which hits the World, whose politically correct leftist character, makes it into a very dangerous phenomenon.

I come from a state, Spain, which has suffered the most deadly terrorist attack in Europe . Do you think that that has vaccinated us against intellectual imbecility, against ideological stupidity, against blind dogmatism? Quite the contrary, today the European country most obsessed against Israel is Spain, one of the most anti-American and the most anti-Semite of the continent. There have been some who have even blamed the Israelis of the Atocha railway terrorist attack in Spain.

As I wrote quite some time ago, many educated and intelligent people, turn into imbeciles when talking about Israel. In my own home town, Barcelona, the hatred towards Israel has become a left-winger's sign of identity, they are capable of refusing to commemorate the day of the Shoah, due to solidarity with the Palestinians. I have been defamed and menaced, and they have even invented the “crime” of “negationist of the Palestinian holocaust” to try to take me to court. The list of deliriums which present-day Spain generates regarding Israel and the Jewish people only reminds one tragically of Medieval Spain and its expulsion edicts.

Today we love the Jewish stones of Toledo and Girona, but we disdain the living Jews, we criminalize Israel and we turn terrorists into heroes. And yet, if our ethical, civic and political ally is not Israel, then which country of the Middle East can it be? The religious dictatorships, the oppressors of women, the fundamentalist fanatics? Spanish intellectuals, and with them a large part of the World's intellectuals, especially the left-wing intellectuals, look upside down, think upside down and upside down establish their hatreds and alliances.

Medieval Jews represented culture, medicine, knowledge, and yet they were the ones who were persecuted. Today, Israel, beyond the legitimate criticism of its mistakes, represents the metaphor of all that we must preserve: freedom, the right to exist and religious tolerance. Despite this, Israel is the World's most hated country. Thus, while Islamic fundamentalism grows, exercises violence, kidnaps and kills, the World's liberals look the other way, abandon the victims and scream their slogans against the only country in the World which is menaced with destruction.

These journalists and intellectuals call themselves solidary, liberators, liberals, and yet they are a lunatic left, dogmatic and anti-historical, which abominates solid democracies, while it pardons brutal tyrannies. They are the new Chamberlains, unconscious collaborators of the totalitarianism which is overtaking the World. For we must not forget that freedom is not only won in the political or military battlefield. It is also won in the field of ideas.

That is why my name is Daniel Pearl, and also Gilad Shalit and Wafa Sultan and Ayan Hirsi Ali and Gordon, Edelmiro, Maria Rose, Andrew and Vincent; every one of the names of those murdered in the Twin Towers, in the London Underground, in the trains of Madrid, in the busses of Jerusalem. My name is Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman who had been condemned to be stoned to death in Iran . And all those who have been lapidated. If we are not them, then who are we? If we do not call ourselves with their names, then how do we call ourselves? If we do not defend their values, then which monsters are we defending?

Here, before the ADL, with the immense honour of receiving the Daniel Pearl Award, today, three days before Daniel's birthday, I reaffirm my ethical, journalistic and human commitment. I will not stop being critical with Israel, nor with the United States, nor with my own country. I will not stop explaining the truth, wherever I see it. But I will always remember on which side of the scale I am. The side of freedom, against that of tyrants; the side of women, against that of their oppressors; the side of Jews, against that of anti-Semitism; the side of culture, against that of fanaticism; the side of Israel, against that of its destroyers; the side of commitment, against that of indifference.

Elie Wiesel said: “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death”.

Indifference is the anteroom of evil. And against that evil I will always struggle.

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 or 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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9 November, 2010

A good reason not to buy Rowntrees confectionery

The radical cleric accused of inspiring the cargo bomb plot has been backed by a prominent British campaign group which has financial support from leading charities.

Cageprisoners, a self-styled human rights organisation, has a long association with Anwar al-Awlaki, who was last week accused of being one of the figures behind the terrorist plot to blow up cargo planes which saw a powerful device defused at East Midlands Airport.

The Islamic preacher, based in Yemen, was invited to address two Cageprisoners' fundraising dinners via video link, one last year and one in 2008.

The group has now told its backers that it no longer supports the cleric and that it "disagreed" with him over "the killing of civilians". But an examination of the Cageprisoners website last week suggested that its support for the cleric was as strong as ever.

Cageprisoners was set up to lobby on behalf of terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay and those monitored under control orders in the UK.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that it is being funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, a Quaker-run fund set up by the chocolate-maker and philanthropist a century ago, and The Roddick Foundation, a charity set up by the family of Anita Roddick, the Body Shop founder, after her death three years ago.

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust is giving Cageprisoners £170,000 in donations over three years - with the latest payment due this month - and The Roddick Foundation another £25,000.

In its website, recently re-branded with some of the charities' cash, Cageprisoners carries more than 20 articles about al-Awlaki, describing him as an 'inspiration' and casting doubt on the evidence he is involved in terrorism.

Awlaki is believed by Western intelligence services to be an ideological figurehead of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group blamed for the cargo bombs. Last year he praised the Muslim US soldier who killed 13 colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas.

Yet despite the heads of both MI5 and MI6 saying Awlaki uses the internet to foment terrorism, the Cageprisoners website also contains video messages from the American-born radical.

Cageprisoners - a not for profit company - is headed by Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, and also employs Feroz Ali Abbasi, another detainee freed from the controversial US base.

As recently as last month its website highlighted claims by Yemeni politicians that they had "never been given evidence against [Awlaki]".

Earlier in the year one leading activist wrote: "Anwar al-Awlaki's contribution to Cageprisoners has always been positive, particularly when invited to our events he has only spoken from his experiences as a former prisoner."

Mr Begg, born in Birmingham, was detained by the Americans for nearly three years after being arrested in Pakistan and accused of being an al-Qaeda terrorist.

He has interviewed al-Awlaki, and earlier this year he wrote that it "was evident that he commanded a large following and great respect amongst many Muslims".

But Mr Begg added that, after Awlaki's alleged torture while held in Yemen in 2006, "I am told, Anwar's position on issues pertaining to the US foreign policy had started to become more hostile... "I wonder if it was terribly surprising if ... after suffering abuse I know only too well US agents to be capable of, [he] now allegedly lauds the Fort Hood shootings as deeds of heroism."

Other articles on the Cageprisoners website raise further questions.

One, on the death of Faraj Hassan, a former control order detainee, said he had died with a smile on his face "similar to the smiles we are used to seeing in videos of those martyred in the way of Allah while fighting in foreign war zones".

Hassan, a Libyan who was accused of an attempted church bombing in Italy, was killed in a road crash in August. The Cageprisoners article added: 'His death … may serve as the fertilizer that serves to revive the spirit of jihad in the Muslims of Britain."

Despite the group's views, it is still being provided with money by the Joseph Rowntree charity, to help with its "core costs", and by the Roddick Foundation, which is run by the late businesswoman's widower Gordon and other members of her family.

Cageprisoners has also received the backing of Amnesty International, which last year faced a public row when one of its staff was forced to quit after calling Amnesty's links to Cageprisoners "a gross error of judgement".

Cageprisoners also received a further £131,000 in donations last year from other undisclosed sources. It has used the money to pay for a rapid expansion of its work. It now has three full-time and one part-time staff members who are paid a total of £64,000 a year.

Last night Stephen Pittman, Secretary of the Joseph Rowntree Trust, defended his charity's funding of the group.

More HERE





British Think Tank Wins Libel Action Brought by Mosque

A UK think-tank has an announcement that it has defeated a libel action brought against it by a London mosque over the publication of its report "The Hijacking of British Islam." According to the announcement by the Policy Exchange:

Policy Exchange is pleased to report that the libel action brought by the North London Central Mosque (NLCM) against it over its report The Hijacking of British Islam has now ended, following the dismissal of NLCM's appeal against the order of Mr Justice Eady.

NLCM has paid a substantial contribution towards Policy Exchange's costs.

A statement agreed between the parties appears on our website here. Policy Exchange has not apologised to NLCM for the publication of its report.

In September 2008, the North London Central Mosque sought to sue Policy Exchange for libel over claims made in its report The Hijacking of British Islam. Policy Exchange denied that the claims were libelous.

On 26 November 2009, Mr Justice Eady struck out NLCM's claim on the grounds that the NLCM lacked the capacity to sue in respect of the report.

NLCM sought the Court's permission to appeal. This was twice refused. It was granted by Lord Justice Sedley on 21 April 2010 on the third time of asking. Lord Justice Sedley nevertheless emphasised that he did not believe there was a realistic prospect of NLCM overturning Mr Justice Eady's ruling.

In the meantime, in February 2010 the trustees of the mosque abandoned their individual claims in libel against Policy Exchange in respect of the same report and paid a substantial contribution to Policy Exchange's legal costs.

In October 2010 NLCM discontinued its appeal and paid a substantial contribution to Policy Exchange's legal costs. Following that agreement the appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 5 October 2010. Policy Exchange agreed to publish the statement which appears here.

Policy Exchange has not apologised to either the mosque or the trustees for the publication of the report. The case is now closed. A spokesman for Policy Exchange said: `We are delighted that this case has now been brought to a satisfactory conclusion.'

The Policy Exchange investigation found that radical material, much of it from Saudi Arabia, was available in 25% of the mosques visited including some of the most important mosques in the U.K. According to the report summary:

On the one hand, the results were reassuring: in only a minority of institutions - approximately 25% - was radical material found. What is more worrying is that these are among the best-funded and most dynamic institutions in Muslim Britain - some of which are held up as mainstream bodies. Many of the institutions featured here have been endowed with official recognition. This has come in the form of, official visits from politicians and even members of the Royal Family; provision of funding; `partnership' associations; or some other seal of approval.

Within the literature identified here, a number of key themes emerge - many of which focus around the twin concepts of `loyalty' and `enmity'. Simply put, these notions demand that the individual Muslim must not merely feel deep affection for and identity with, his fellow believers and with all that is authentically Islamic. The individual Muslim must also feel an abhorrence for non-believers, hypocrites, heretics, and all that is deemed `un-Islamic'. The latter category encompasses those Muslims who are judged to practise an insufficiently rigorous form of Islam. Much of the material is thus infused with a strident sectarianism, in which many Muslims - particularly the very large number of Sufis in this country and around the world - are placed beyond the pale.

More widely, Muslims are urged to separate themselves from people and things that are not considered Islamic; a separation that is to be mental, emotional, and at times, even physical. Western society, in particular, is held to be sinful, corrosive and corrupting for Muslims. Western values - particularly concerning the position and rights of women and in the realm of sexuality generally - are rejected as inimical to Islam.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), an umbrella organization heavily dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, responded to the report by stating:

The Hijacking of British Islam' plumbs new depths in the ongoing and transparent attempts to try and delegitimise popular mainstream Islamic institutions in the UK and replace them with those who are subservient to neo-conservative aims. The report cultivates an insidious programme of generating sectarianism amongst British Muslims by preferring some traditions of Islam over others.

Many of the mosques identified in the Policy Exchange report are members of the MCB.

The British Muslim Initiative (BMI), a U.K. Muslim Brotherhood organization claimed that the report itself was "wildly fabricated."and called on the Conservative Party to "reconsider their close relationship with Policy Exchange."

SOURCE







'Race relation' threat to British shopkeeper for selling a book that pokes fun at the French

When it comes to humour - and much else - the two nations have rarely seen eye to eye. And the British ability to rattle the sangfroid of the French still appears to be in good working order.

For when shopkeeper Alyson Jackson began stocking a book titled 50 Reasons to Hate the French, the joke apparently got lost in translation. As a result, Miss Jackson has received complaints from French families who have threatened to report her to `race relations'. However, the former policewoman has vowed to continue selling the popular book, which she says is `just a bit of fun'.

The controversial hardback, by Alex Clarke and Jules Eden, mocks the demise of Concorde, questions the merit of French food and describes the beret as `the devil's own cowpat'.

Perhaps more pertinently, the Gallic sense of humour also gets a bashing. But it seems the French didn't see the funny side. A week after the book went on sale in Mish Mash in Battersea, south London, a woman phoned the shop to voice her disgust. In a voicemail message, she said: `We found your book in the window in extremely bad taste. What are you thinking of? This isn't the thing to do. We are a French family and offended. We have sense of humour about ourselves but, really, please.'

A second woman, who called herself Madame Duval, left a recorded message a week later, saying: `You may find it amusing but I'm afraid we do not. `We will be getting in touch with race relations about this. Now you may think this is a little heavy handed but it's not, so if you would like to remove the books that would be something.'

Miss Jackson said she was shocked by the reaction. `I just thought I would put them in the shop as Christmas approached as a possible gift idea. I just thought it would be a little bit of fun,' she added.

`We have always had a love-hate relationship with the French. Everyone knows we are supposed to hate the French and they are supposed to hate us. But it is a joke. If they read the book they would see that. `The fact is I actually like the French. All the French I have ever met have been quite lovely. `We just enjoy having a bit of a dig now and again. The striking recently is a good example. We all had a good grumble about that.'

She added that she has already sold half her stock of the book - and plans to get more copies in.

SOURCE








The British railway passenger told it's too dangerous to take a cup of tea to his seat

A passenger was banned from carrying a cup of tea back to his seat on a train because of health-and-safety rules. Instead, one of the buffet staff carried Tore Fauske's drink to his seat for him, walking two steps behind the bemused traveller.

Interpreter and author Mr Fauske was told that carrying the tea back through the carriage would pose a danger to other passengers because buffet car staff did not have a paper bag in which to put the plastic cup.

The 79-year-old was returning home to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, on the 12.30pm service from Birmingham New Street. He said: `I use this train service all the time and they normally give you a small paper bag to carry your tea in. But this time they didn't have any. `The lady was very apologetic but she said I couldn't have a tea because there were no bags.

When I asked her why not, she said it was for health-and-safety reasons. She said they wouldn't be able to let anyone carry a cup of tea without a bag through the train. I thought it was a joke. `In the end the member of staff had to walk behind me carrying the tea in case I fell over. This is the first time I've had my own personal tea caddy. He walked two steps behind me the whole way back to my seat.' Mr Fauske said the same thing had happened to other passengers.

A spokesman for CrossCountry Trains, which operates the service, said: `It was a health-and-safety issue. It's to prevent customers pouring hot water over themselves or other people on the train. `We had run out of paper bags and a member of staff stepped in to help out.'

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 or 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 November, 2010

Is the West Really Islamophobic - Or Under Attack?

An AP article on October 5/6 ran with a headline: "5 Germans killed in Pakistan with Europe on Alert." Had the Nazi party revived? Reading further, the article said: "An American missile strike killed five German militants Monday in the rugged Pakistan border area where a cell of Germans and Britons at the heart of the U.S. terror alert for Europe---a plot U.S. officials link to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden-were believed in hiding."

This long paragraph never mentioned the word "Muslim!" The article said: "there is concrete evidence that at least 70 Germans have undergone paramilitary training in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and about a third have returned to Germany." Are these new German converts to Islam or Muslim immigrants to Germany? Why not identify those who want to kill and maim as many of them as possible?

Although the European press is tip-toeing around the problem, their police are not. They are on alert across Europe because they have learned of plans for a Mumbai-like attack in which armed suicide operatives, in public places, kill as many Europeans, including European Muslims, as they can. And an attempt was made by Yemeni terrorists to detonate explosives in the US in late October.

Europeans want to avoid their nasty old tradition of bigotry, but denial isn't the answer either. Some Muslims living in Europe are increasingly integrated (as are our own immigrants over time). But there is a deadly strain of Islam that is international, has a clearly Islamo-fascist ideology, and is supported by Middle East oil money. This cult is vigorously engaging in missionary work both among young secular Muslims and among disaffected Europeans and Americans (usually in prison). They are armed and dangerous.

One new American citizen, Faisal Shahzad, tried (but failed) to detonate a bomb in downtown New York. He has been sentenced to life in prison. The judge asked: "Didn't you swear to defend the United States when he became a citizen?" "Yes," he said, "but I did not mean it." He warned: "brace yourself, the war with Muslims has just begun. The defeat of the U.S. is imminent, inshallah (God willing)."

A Pakistani woman, Asfia Siddiqui, was sentenced in the US to 85 years in prison as a terrorist. She was arrested for shooting Americans who attempted to question her when she was captured in 2008. She is a Ph.D. scientist who studied at MIT and Brandeis and yet was found with hand-written plans to do a mass-casualty attack on New York City. She was carrying two pounds of sodium cyanide to use as an explosive and had a computer flash drive with plans for injecting poison into fresh fruits. Despite her education, she believes in Islamo-fascism, an incredible choice considering her education and gender. And yet her fellow Pakistanis incredibly insist she is innocent.

Why, if terrorists proclaim that they are Muslims and believe it is their religious duty to war with the West, are we afraid to say so? In Sweden, the press is so intimidated that in publishing crime statistics, it will not print names lest the reading public realize the criminals are Muslim. And here, Juan Williams, a commentator with sterling liberal credentials, was fired by NPR because he said what many of us (including secular Muslims) think: that he is nervous to fly with passengers wearing Muslim garb.

Norway, in a departure from its past, has stopped Saudi Arabia from financing more mosque building in Norway. It would be "paradoxical and unnatural" to accept funding from a country closed to all religious freedom, they said. This is not Islamophobia; this is self-defense.

In the Netherlands, a popular Dutch member of parliament, Geert Wilders, on trial for anti-Muslim "hate speech;" is reminding the Dutch that freedom of speech is the centerpiece of democracy and they should defend it.

Muslim terrorists cannot bring down a western country unless we let them. We can hope that in the long run, these militants will either provoke the rest of the Muslim world to modernize, or destroy and bring about an entirely new Islam.

SOURCE






At last, someone who grasps a truth the British Left won't admit: welfare traps people in poverty

There is a rough rule of thumb that if the wrong kind of people are ­opposed to what you are doing, then you must be on the right track. By those lights, the reaction from the usual ­suspects on the Left to Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms indicate that he has hit the bull’s eye in the most satisfactory way.

For even before he actually unveils his proposals this week, the air is thick with screams of rage and lurid claims of ‘slave labour’.

So what is he doing to provoke such fury? Why, making the outrageous ­proposal that instead of ­sitting at home on benefits doing nothing, people who are out of work should actually give something back to society in return. According to advance reports, IDS will be requiring the unemployed to ­undertake community service projects such as gardening, clearing litter and other menial tasks.

Following the example of U.S.-style ‘workfare’, they will do such jobs for 30 hours per week for four weeks at a rate of £1 per hour, under the threat of being stripped of their Jobseekers’ Allowance for three months if they fall short.

Shock horror! Such is the outrage on the Left, you’d think IDS was proposing to send little children up the chimneys. All he is doing, however, is responding to the patently obvious fact that unemployed people don’t just suffer from an absence of work but also — more lethally — from ­having settled into a way of life which saps their ability to work. The driving aim of his entire welfare reform package is to ensure that it always pays to work rather than stay on welfare.

For IDS has understood that welfare dependency quickly leads to demoralisation and the institution of permanent poverty.

True to their Pavlovian knee-jerk reflex, however, the Left have exploded. In their foaming rage, they don’t even realise that their own claims don’t add up. They whine, for example, that the unemployed can’t be expected to find work, as there are no jobs to be found. At the very same time, they splutter that having to do such community work will give the ­unemployed no time to look for work. Well, which is it? If there aren’t any jobs, what’s the point of looking for them?

The fact is that much worklessness results from people calculating they are better off on benefits than in low-paid jobs. It’s that calculation that IDS is trying to reverse.

Trying to paint him of all people as some kind of cruel Dickensian workhouse ­overseer is particularly imbecilic. IDS is, indeed, the one person against whom that particular smear of ‘heartlessness’ cannot be made to stick.

The patent decency of the man is plain for all to see. He is motivated by the ­highest possible concerns to rescue the poor not merely from material poverty, but the moral and spiritual degradation which keeps them trapped permanently in disadvantage.
For what drives ‘progressives’ absolutely wild is the moral concern at the heart of the IDS project — to encourage the poor to take some responsibility for themselves and for others

Using his own enforced unemployment as a junked Tory leader to turn himself into an unrivalled expert on the lives of the poor, he grasped one of the most shocking facts of all — that under the guise of ­‘compassion’, the Left traps people in ­permanent poverty through treating them as less than human. For what drives ‘progressives’ absolutely wild is the moral concern at the heart of the IDS project — to encourage the poor to take some responsibility for themselves and for others.

But it is an article of faith on the Left that the poor are helpless tools of circumstance; and so it is outrageous to expect them to behave as anything other than victims, who accordingly can only ever take rather than give. This is tantamount to saying that the poor are a breed apart — incapable of ­displaying the same human dignity as the rest of society.

Their resulting entrapment in permanent poverty then gives the Left their own meal ticket for life through the enormous industry they run to manage the lives of the poor.

It is against this odiously hypocritical parasite culture of welfarism that IDS has set the Coalition’s face. For which we should be cheering him on.

But is it actually enough? For the screams of heartlessness mask the fact that his proposals appear not to bite on certain particularly toxic bullets.

It is said that the Coalition has been much influenced by the U.S. welfare ­revolution under President Bill Clinton — effectively forced upon him by a ­Republican Congress — which got a lot of people off welfare and into work.

But there was one important element of the U.S. scheme from which the Coalition is flinching. It set a cut-off point for benefit payments if the claimant hadn’t found work by the end of a set period. At the time, this was greeted by the American Left as being on a par with Pharaoh’s slaying of the first born. Thousands would starve in the streets, they predicted. Did you hear about such a monstrous ­development? Of course not. It never happened.

But it seems that the IDS proposals will not contain that crucial ­welfare cut-off point. So one might say that, far from being unprecedentedly harsh and cruel, these proposals don’t go far enough.

Perhaps even more important, restoring the work ethic is only a partial remedy for welfare dependency. For one of the key factors behind permanent poverty is the growth of lone parenthood and mass fatherlessness.

The Left subsidised this catastrophic pattern of behaviour through heavy welfare subsidies for lone parents. To address this, American welfare reformers pushed lone mothers off welfare and into work.

This certainly reduced welfare dependency among lone parents — but it failed to bring down the rate of out-of-wedlock births which create poverty in the first place.

That’s because, whether their income derives from welfare payments or ­employment, if women are economically independent from their babies’ fathers there is no disincentive to going it alone in bringing up their children.

This is the trap into which the Coalition is inevitably falling. Properly addressing the scourge of mass fatherlessness means acknowledging that poverty is not the biggest problem lone-parent households face. Far worse is the emotional harm done to children by the absence of their fathers; the abuse of women and children by transient boyfriends; and the fact that such endemic disadvantage is passed down through the generations because there is no awareness of any other way of life.

To address this would mean tackling the assumption that it is every girl’s right to bring a baby into the world regardless of whether it will be born into such multiple disadvantage. And that would mean ­measures like substituting a place in a mother-and-baby home for giving a young lone mother a council flat.

Given the lifestyle-choice ideology of both the spin-conscious Cameroons and the family-busting Lib Dems, there is probably precious little prospect that the causes of family breakdown will be addressed. Indeed, if work is offered as an antidote to lone-parent welfare dependency, this may paradoxically merely further entrench that particular route into permanent poverty.

Nevertheless, the best cannot be allowed to become the enemy of the good. If IDS were to break the idea that welfare means getting something for nothing, that would, in turn, start to break the hitherto ­impregnable culture of self-righteous infantilism that fuels family breakdown and other destructive behaviour.

And that would be a tremendous ­achievement. So we must hold our breath that he succeeds in reforming welfare — and that the Coalition holds its nerve to allow him to do so.

SOURCE





British woman goes to jail for constantly changing rape claim -- treated as perjury

A woman who accused her husband of rape has been jailed after she was ‘emotionally blackmailed’ into dropping the allegations. She was led sobbing from court to serve an eight-month sentence after she was convicted of perverting the course of justice.

Her family reacted with dismay after the 28-year-old was jailed for ‘falsely retracting’ her allegations. Last night rape charities and women’s groups called for the woman to be freed immediately.

Holly Dustin, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: ‘Imprisoning a woman for a “false retraction” of a rape allegation sends out a chilling message that the criminal justice system is still in the dark ages in relation to sexual violence and does not understand the pressure women come under from perpetrators during the legal process.’

She added that the move could make victims less likely to report rape to police if they felt they could themselves be dragged before the courts and face jail sentences if they did not proceed with the allegations.

Edina Williams, who helps victims of rape, said: ‘I find it astonishing that in this day and age this woman was hauled before the courts. She is the victim of repeated rapes but she is the one behind bars. It simply does not make sense.’

She added: ‘Many women are victims of domestic rape and, as well as being a terrifying time for them, it is often confusing. ‘Instead of punishing women by throwing them in jail, victims should be given specialist support, counselling and assistance from agencies including the police.’

The woman, from Welshpool in Powys, Wales, had dialled 999 last November and told officers she had been raped six times by her husband. Police charged him with the rape offence.

In January, as the case against her husband proceeded, she told officers she wanted to drop the charges – even though she claimed the allegations of rape were completely true.

But in February she said she had in fact lied about the rape claims and they were untrue. Officers from Dyfed-Powys Police then arrested her and she was charged with perverting the course of justice.

In July the distraught woman changed her mind once again, saying the rapes had actually happened. Her solicitor said she had lied previously because she was being ‘emotionally blackmailed’ by her husband during the breakdown of their marriage, which was now over.

She told officers she had been persuaded by her husband and his family to drop the charges because he could face a long jail sentence if convicted of rape while she would get only a few months.

On Friday, distraught relatives of the woman shouted at Judge John Rogers, QC, as he jailed her at Mold Crown Court. The judge said the woman had changed her position again after being told she would be prosecuted for a false allegation of rape which could have carried a longer sentence of up to two years.

He told her: ‘When you were informed you were to be prosecuted for a false allegation of rape you went back on your original position. ‘You now have to be dealt with for making a false retraction. If you had to be dealt with for making a false allegation of rape you would be looking at a sentence of two years.’

He said she had wasted a ‘substantial amount’ of time and money for the Crown Prosecution Service and the police. The husband, who appeared in court at an earlier hearing, pleaded not guilty to rape.

SOURCE





Prominent Australian conservative won't support gay marriage

I don't always agree with Joe but I think he is pretty right on this one

OPPOSITION treasury spokesman Joe Hockey says he would not support laws to allow gay marriage.

Right-wing Labor minister Mark Arbib is the first frontbencher to say he believes Labor should support gay marriage and that MPs should have a conscience vote on the controversial issue. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has previously ruled out the move.

Mr Hockey said he did not support gay marriage. "I don't agree with gay marriage," he told Sky News today. "I think a marriage is between a man and a woman and that's been my consistent view."

Mr Hockey said it would not be advantageous for Labor to support a conscience vote on gay marriage, despite evidence it is losing support to the Australian Greens on social issues.

"The more the Labor Party talks about non-mainstream issues ... the economy and productivity and a range of other things, the more they talk about other issues, the less Australians are going to listen to them," he said.

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 or 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.

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



9 November, 2010

A good reason not to buy Rowntrees confectionery

The radical cleric accused of inspiring the cargo bomb plot has been backed by a prominent British campaign group which has financial support from leading charities.

Cageprisoners, a self-styled human rights organisation, has a long association with Anwar al-Awlaki, who was last week accused of being one of the figures behind the terrorist plot to blow up cargo planes which saw a powerful device defused at East Midlands Airport.

The Islamic preacher, based in Yemen, was invited to address two Cageprisoners' fundraising dinners via video link, one last year and one in 2008.

The group has now told its backers that it no longer supports the cleric and that it "disagreed" with him over "the killing of civilians". But an examination of the Cageprisoners website last week suggested that its support for the cleric was as strong as ever.

Cageprisoners was set up to lobby on behalf of terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay and those monitored under control orders in the UK.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that it is being funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, a Quaker-run fund set up by the chocolate-maker and philanthropist a century ago, and The Roddick Foundation, a charity set up by the family of Anita Roddick, the Body Shop founder, after her death three years ago.

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust is giving Cageprisoners £170,000 in donations over three years - with the latest payment due this month - and The Roddick Foundation another £25,000.

In its website, recently re-branded with some of the charities' cash, Cageprisoners carries more than 20 articles about al-Awlaki, describing him as an 'inspiration' and casting doubt on the evidence he is involved in terrorism.

Awlaki is believed by Western intelligence services to be an ideological figurehead of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group blamed for the cargo bombs. Last year he praised the Muslim US soldier who killed 13 colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas.

Yet despite the heads of both MI5 and MI6 saying Awlaki uses the internet to foment terrorism, the Cageprisoners website also contains video messages from the American-born radical.

Cageprisoners - a not for profit company - is headed by Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, and also employs Feroz Ali Abbasi, another detainee freed from the controversial US base.

As recently as last month its website highlighted claims by Yemeni politicians that they had "never been given evidence against [Awlaki]".

Earlier in the year one leading activist wrote: "Anwar al-Awlaki's contribution to Cageprisoners has always been positive, particularly when invited to our events he has only spoken from his experiences as a former prisoner."

Mr Begg, born in Birmingham, was detained by the Americans for nearly three years after being arrested in Pakistan and accused of being an al-Qaeda terrorist.

He has interviewed al-Awlaki, and earlier this year he wrote that it "was evident that he commanded a large following and great respect amongst many Muslims".

But Mr Begg added that, after Awlaki's alleged torture while held in Yemen in 2006, "I am told, Anwar's position on issues pertaining to the US foreign policy had started to become more hostile... "I wonder if it was terribly surprising if ... after suffering abuse I know only too well US agents to be capable of, [he] now allegedly lauds the Fort Hood shootings as deeds of heroism."

Other articles on the Cageprisoners website raise further questions.

One, on the death of Faraj Hassan, a former control order detainee, said he had died with a smile on his face "similar to the smiles we are used to seeing in videos of those martyred in the way of Allah while fighting in foreign war zones".

Hassan, a Libyan who was accused of an attempted church bombing in Italy, was killed in a road crash in August. The Cageprisoners article added: 'His death … may serve as the fertilizer that serves to revive the spirit of jihad in the Muslims of Britain."

Despite the group's views, it is still being provided with money by the Joseph Rowntree charity, to help with its "core costs", and by the Roddick Foundation, which is run by the late businesswoman's widower Gordon and other members of her family.

Cageprisoners has also received the backing of Amnesty International, which last year faced a public row when one of its staff was forced to quit after calling Amnesty's links to Cageprisoners "a gross error of judgement".

Cageprisoners also received a further £131,000 in donations last year from other undisclosed sources. It has used the money to pay for a rapid expansion of its work. It now has three full-time and one part-time staff members who are paid a total of £64,000 a year.

Last night Stephen Pittman, Secretary of the Joseph Rowntree Trust, defended his charity's funding of the group.

More HERE





British Think Tank Wins Libel Action Brought by Mosque

A UK think-tank has an announcement that it has defeated a libel action brought against it by a London mosque over the publication of its report "The Hijacking of British Islam." According to the announcement by the Policy Exchange:

Policy Exchange is pleased to report that the libel action brought by the North London Central Mosque (NLCM) against it over its report The Hijacking of British Islam has now ended, following the dismissal of NLCM's appeal against the order of Mr Justice Eady.

NLCM has paid a substantial contribution towards Policy Exchange's costs.

A statement agreed between the parties appears on our website here. Policy Exchange has not apologised to NLCM for the publication of its report.

In September 2008, the North London Central Mosque sought to sue Policy Exchange for libel over claims made in its report The Hijacking of British Islam. Policy Exchange denied that the claims were libelous.

On 26 November 2009, Mr Justice Eady struck out NLCM's claim on the grounds that the NLCM lacked the capacity to sue in respect of the report.

NLCM sought the Court's permission to appeal. This was twice refused. It was granted by Lord Justice Sedley on 21 April 2010 on the third time of asking. Lord Justice Sedley nevertheless emphasised that he did not believe there was a realistic prospect of NLCM overturning Mr Justice Eady's ruling.

In the meantime, in February 2010 the trustees of the mosque abandoned their individual claims in libel against Policy Exchange in respect of the same report and paid a substantial contribution to Policy Exchange's legal costs.

In October 2010 NLCM discontinued its appeal and paid a substantial contribution to Policy Exchange's legal costs. Following that agreement the appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 5 October 2010. Policy Exchange agreed to publish the statement which appears here.

Policy Exchange has not apologised to either the mosque or the trustees for the publication of the report. The case is now closed. A spokesman for Policy Exchange said: `We are delighted that this case has now been brought to a satisfactory conclusion.'

The Policy Exchange investigation found that radical material, much of it from Saudi Arabia, was available in 25% of the mosques visited including some of the most important mosques in the U.K. According to the report summary:

On the one hand, the results were reassuring: in only a minority of institutions - approximately 25% - was radical material found. What is more worrying is that these are among the best-funded and most dynamic institutions in Muslim Britain - some of which are held up as mainstream bodies. Many of the institutions featured here have been endowed with official recognition. This has come in the form of, official visits from politicians and even members of the Royal Family; provision of funding; `partnership' associations; or some other seal of approval.

Within the literature identified here, a number of key themes emerge - many of which focus around the twin concepts of `loyalty' and `enmity'. Simply put, these notions demand that the individual Muslim must not merely feel deep affection for and identity with, his fellow believers and with all that is authentically Islamic. The individual Muslim must also feel an abhorrence for non-believers, hypocrites, heretics, and all that is deemed `un-Islamic'. The latter category encompasses those Muslims who are judged to practise an insufficiently rigorous form of Islam. Much of the material is thus infused with a strident sectarianism, in which many Muslims - particularly the very large number of Sufis in this country and around the world - are placed beyond the pale.

More widely, Muslims are urged to separate themselves from people and things that are not considered Islamic; a separation that is to be mental, emotional, and at times, even physical. Western society, in particular, is held to be sinful, corrosive and corrupting for Muslims. Western values - particularly concerning the position and rights of women and in the realm of sexuality generally - are rejected as inimical to Islam.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), an umbrella organization heavily dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, responded to the report by stating:

The Hijacking of British Islam' plumbs new depths in the ongoing and transparent attempts to try and delegitimise popular mainstream Islamic institutions in the UK and replace them with those who are subservient to neo-conservative aims. The report cultivates an insidious programme of generating sectarianism amongst British Muslims by preferring some traditions of Islam over others.

Many of the mosques identified in the Policy Exchange report are members of the MCB.

The British Muslim Initiative (BMI), a U.K. Muslim Brotherhood organization claimed that the report itself was "wildly fabricated."and called on the Conservative Party to "reconsider their close relationship with Policy Exchange."

SOURCE







'Race relation' threat to British shopkeeper for selling a book that pokes fun at the French

When it comes to humour - and much else - the two nations have rarely seen eye to eye. And the British ability to rattle the sangfroid of the French still appears to be in good working order.

For when shopkeeper Alyson Jackson began stocking a book titled 50 Reasons to Hate the French, the joke apparently got lost in translation. As a result, Miss Jackson has received complaints from French families who have threatened to report her to `race relations'. However, the former policewoman has vowed to continue selling the popular book, which she says is `just a bit of fun'.

The controversial hardback, by Alex Clarke and Jules Eden, mocks the demise of Concorde, questions the merit of French food and describes the beret as `the devil's own cowpat'.

Perhaps more pertinently, the Gallic sense of humour also gets a bashing. But it seems the French didn't see the funny side. A week after the book went on sale in Mish Mash in Battersea, south London, a woman phoned the shop to voice her disgust. In a voicemail message, she said: `We found your book in the window in extremely bad taste. What are you thinking of? This isn't the thing to do. We are a French family and offended. We have sense of humour about ourselves but, really, please.'

A second woman, who called herself Madame Duval, left a recorded message a week later, saying: `You may find it amusing but I'm afraid we do not. `We will be getting in touch with race relations about this. Now you may think this is a little heavy handed but it's not, so if you would like to remove the books that would be something.'

Miss Jackson said she was shocked by the reaction. `I just thought I would put them in the shop as Christmas approached as a possible gift idea. I just thought it would be a little bit of fun,' she added.

`We have always had a love-hate relationship with the French. Everyone knows we are supposed to hate the French and they are supposed to hate us. But it is a joke. If they read the book they would see that. `The fact is I actually like the French. All the French I have ever met have been quite lovely. `We just enjoy having a bit of a dig now and again. The striking recently is a good example. We all had a good grumble about that.'

She added that she has already sold half her stock of the book - and plans to get more copies in.

SOURCE








The British railway passenger told it's too dangerous to take a cup of tea to his seat

A passenger was banned from carrying a cup of tea back to his seat on a train because of health-and-safety rules. Instead, one of the buffet staff carried Tore Fauske's drink to his seat for him, walking two steps behind the bemused traveller.

Interpreter and author Mr Fauske was told that carrying the tea back through the carriage would pose a danger to other passengers because buffet car staff did not have a paper bag in which to put the plastic cup.

The 79-year-old was returning home to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, on the 12.30pm service from Birmingham New Street. He said: `I use this train service all the time and they normally give you a small paper bag to carry your tea in. But this time they didn't have any. `The lady was very apologetic but she said I couldn't have a tea because there were no bags.

When I asked her why not, she said it was for health-and-safety reasons. She said they wouldn't be able to let anyone carry a cup of tea without a bag through the train. I thought it was a joke. `In the end the member of staff had to walk behind me carrying the tea in case I fell over. This is the first time I've had my own personal tea caddy. He walked two steps behind me the whole way back to my seat.' Mr Fauske said the same thing had happened to other passengers.

A spokesman for CrossCountry Trains, which operates the service, said: `It was a health-and-safety issue. It's to prevent customers pouring hot water over themselves or other people on the train. `We had run out of paper bags and a member of staff stepped in to help out.'

SOURCE

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

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 or 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.

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



8 November, 2010

A good reason not to buy Rowntrees confectionery

The radical cleric accused of inspiring the cargo bomb plot has been backed by a prominent British campaign group which has financial support from leading charities.

Cageprisoners, a self-styled human rights organisation, has a long association with Anwar al-Awlaki, who was last week accused of being one of the figures behind the terrorist plot to blow up cargo planes which saw a powerful device defused at East Midlands Airport.

The Islamic preacher, based in Yemen, was invited to address two Cageprisoners' fundraising dinners via video link, one last year and one in 2008.

The group has now told its backers that it no longer supports the cleric and that it "disagreed" with him over "the killing of civilians". But an examination of the Cageprisoners website last week suggested that its support for the cleric was as strong as ever.

Cageprisoners was set up to lobby on behalf of terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay and those monitored under control orders in the UK.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that it is being funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, a Quaker-run fund set up by the chocolate-maker and philanthropist a century ago, and The Roddick Foundation, a charity set up by the family of Anita Roddick, the Body Shop founder, after her death three years ago.

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust is giving Cageprisoners £170,000 in donations over three years - with the latest payment due this month - and The Roddick Foundation another £25,000.

In its website, recently re-branded with some of the charities' cash, Cageprisoners carries more than 20 articles about al-Awlaki, describing him as an 'inspiration' and casting doubt on the evidence he is involved in terrorism.

Awlaki is believed by Western intelligence services to be an ideological figurehead of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group blamed for the cargo bombs. Last year he praised the Muslim US soldier who killed 13 colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas.

Yet despite the heads of both MI5 and MI6 saying Awlaki uses the internet to foment terrorism, the Cageprisoners website also contains video messages from the American-born radical.

Cageprisoners - a not for profit company - is headed by Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, and also employs Feroz Ali Abbasi, another detainee freed from the controversial US base.

As recently as last month its website highlighted claims by Yemeni politicians that they had "never been given evidence against [Awlaki]".

Earlier in the year one leading activist wrote: "Anwar al-Awlaki's contribution to Cageprisoners has always been positive, particularly when invited to our events he has only spoken from his experiences as a former prisoner."

Mr Begg, born in Birmingham, was detained by the Americans for nearly three years after being arrested in Pakistan and accused of being an al-Qaeda terrorist.

He has interviewed al-Awlaki, and earlier this year he wrote that it "was evident that he commanded a large following and great respect amongst many Muslims".

But Mr Begg added that, after Awlaki's alleged torture while held in Yemen in 2006, "I am told, Anwar's position on issues pertaining to the US foreign policy had started to become more hostile... "I wonder if it was terribly surprising if ... after suffering abuse I know only too well US agents to be capable of, [he] now allegedly lauds the Fort Hood shootings as deeds of heroism."

Other articles on the Cageprisoners website raise further questions.

One, on the death of Faraj Hassan, a former control order detainee, said he had died with a smile on his face "similar to the smiles we are used to seeing in videos of those martyred in the way of Allah while fighting in foreign war zones".

Hassan, a Libyan who was accused of an attempted church bombing in Italy, was killed in a road crash in August. The Cageprisoners article added: 'His death … may serve as the fertilizer that serves to revive the spirit of jihad in the Muslims of Britain."

Despite the group's views, it is still being provided with money by the Joseph Rowntree charity, to help with its "core costs", and by the Roddick Foundation, which is run by the late businesswoman's widower Gordon and other members of her family.

Cageprisoners has also received the backing of Amnesty International, which last year faced a public row when one of its staff was forced to quit after calling Amnesty's links to Cageprisoners "a gross error of judgement".

Cageprisoners also received a further £131,000 in donations last year from other undisclosed sources. It has used the money to pay for a rapid expansion of its work. It now has three full-time and one part-time staff members who are paid a total of £64,000 a year.

Last night Stephen Pittman, Secretary of the Joseph Rowntree Trust, defended his charity's funding of the group.

More HERE





British Think Tank Wins Libel Action Brought by Mosque

A UK think-tank has an announcement that it has defeated a libel action brought against it by a London mosque over the publication of its report "The Hijacking of British Islam." According to the announcement by the Policy Exchange:

Policy Exchange is pleased to report that the libel action brought by the North London Central Mosque (NLCM) against it over its report The Hijacking of British Islam has now ended, following the dismissal of NLCM's appeal against the order of Mr Justice Eady.

NLCM has paid a substantial contribution towards Policy Exchange's costs.

A statement agreed between the parties appears on our website here. Policy Exchange has not apologised to NLCM for the publication of its report.

In September 2008, the North London Central Mosque sought to sue Policy Exchange for libel over claims made in its report The Hijacking of British Islam. Policy Exchange denied that the claims were libelous.

On 26 November 2009, Mr Justice Eady struck out NLCM's claim on the grounds that the NLCM lacked the capacity to sue in respect of the report.

NLCM sought the Court's permission to appeal. This was twice refused. It was granted by Lord Justice Sedley on 21 April 2010 on the third time of asking. Lord Justice Sedley nevertheless emphasised that he did not believe there was a realistic prospect of NLCM overturning Mr Justice Eady's ruling.

In the meantime, in February 2010 the trustees of the mosque abandoned their individual claims in libel against Policy Exchange in respect of the same report and paid a substantial contribution to Policy Exchange's legal costs.

In October 2010 NLCM discontinued its appeal and paid a substantial contribution to Policy Exchange's legal costs. Following that agreement the appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 5 October 2010. Policy Exchange agreed to publish the statement which appears here.

Policy Exchange has not apologised to either the mosque or the trustees for the publication of the report. The case is now closed. A spokesman for Policy Exchange said: `We are delighted that this case has now been brought to a satisfactory conclusion.'

The Policy Exchange investigation found that radical material, much of it from Saudi Arabia, was available in 25% of the mosques visited including some of the most important mosques in the U.K. According to the report summary:

On the one hand, the results were reassuring: in only a minority of institutions - approximately 25% - was radical material found. What is more worrying is that these are among the best-funded and most dynamic institutions in Muslim Britain - some of which are held up as mainstream bodies. Many of the institutions featured here have been endowed with official recognition. This has come in the form of, official visits from politicians and even members of the Royal Family; provision of funding; `partnership' associations; or some other seal of approval.

Within the literature identified here, a number of key themes emerge - many of which focus around the twin concepts of `loyalty' and `enmity'. Simply put, these notions demand that the individual Muslim must not merely feel deep affection for and identity with, his fellow believers and with all that is authentically Islamic. The individual Muslim must also feel an abhorrence for non-believers, hypocrites, heretics, and all that is deemed `un-Islamic'. The latter category encompasses those Muslims who are judged to practise an insufficiently rigorous form of Islam. Much of the material is thus infused with a strident sectarianism, in which many Muslims - particularly the very large number of Sufis in this country and around the world - are placed beyond the pale.

More widely, Muslims are urged to separate themselves from people and things that are not considered Islamic; a separation that is to be mental, emotional, and at times, even physical. Western society, in particular, is held to be sinful, corrosive and corrupting for Muslims. Western values - particularly concerning the position and rights of women and in the realm of sexuality generally - are rejected as inimical to Islam.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), an umbrella organization heavily dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, responded to the report by stating:

The Hijacking of British Islam' plumbs new depths in the ongoing and transparent attempts to try and delegitimise popular mainstream Islamic institutions in the UK and replace them with those who are subservient to neo-conservative aims. The report cultivates an insidious programme of generating sectarianism amongst British Muslims by preferring some traditions of Islam over others.

Many of the mosques identified in the Policy Exchange report are members of the MCB.

The British Muslim Initiative (BMI), a U.K. Muslim Brotherhood organization claimed that the report itself was "wildly fabricated."and called on the Conservative Party to "reconsider their close relationship with Policy Exchange."

SOURCE







'Race relation' threat to British shopkeeper for selling a book that pokes fun at the French

When it comes to humour - and much else - the two nations have rarely seen eye to eye. And the British ability to rattle the sangfroid of the French still appears to be in good working order.

For when shopkeeper Alyson Jackson began stocking a book titled 50 Reasons to Hate the French, the joke apparently got lost in translation. As a result, Miss Jackson has received complaints from French families who have threatened to report her to `race relations'. However, the former policewoman has vowed to continue selling the popular book, which she says is `just a bit of fun'.

The controversial hardback, by Alex Clarke and Jules Eden, mocks the demise of Concorde, questions the merit of French food and describes the beret as `the devil's own cowpat'.

Perhaps more pertinently, the Gallic sense of humour also gets a bashing. But it seems the French didn't see the funny side. A week after the book went on sale in Mish Mash in Battersea, south London, a woman phoned the shop to voice her disgust. In a voicemail message, she said: `We found your book in the window in extremely bad taste. What are you thinking of? This isn't the thing to do. We are a French family and offended. We have sense of humour about ourselves but, really, please.'

A second woman, who called herself Madame Duval, left a recorded message a week later, saying: `You may find it amusing but I'm afraid we do not. `We will be getting in touch with race relations about this. Now you may think this is a little heavy handed but it's not, so if you would like to remove the books that would be something.'

Miss Jackson said she was shocked by the reaction. `I just thought I would put them in the shop as Christmas approached as a possible gift idea. I just thought it would be a little bit of fun,' she added.

`We have always had a love-hate relationship with the French. Everyone knows we are supposed to hate the French and they are supposed to hate us. But it is a joke. If they read the book they would see that. `The fact is I actually like the French. All the French I have ever met have been quite lovely. `We just enjoy having a bit of a dig now and again. The striking recently is a good example. We all had a good grumble about that.'

She added that she has already sold half her stock of the book - and plans to get more copies in.

SOURCE








The British railway passenger told it's too dangerous to take a cup of tea to his seat

A passenger was banned from carrying a cup of tea back to his seat on a train because of health-and-safety rules. Instead, one of the buffet staff carried Tore Fauske's drink to his seat for him, walking two steps behind the bemused traveller.

Interpreter and author Mr Fauske was told that carrying the tea back through the carriage would pose a danger to other passengers because buffet car staff did not have a paper bag in which to put the plastic cup.

The 79-year-old was returning home to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, on the 12.30pm service from Birmingham New Street. He said: `I use this train service all the time and they normally give you a small paper bag to carry your tea in. But this time they didn't have any. `The lady was very apologetic but she said I couldn't have a tea because there were no bags.

When I asked her why not, she said it was for health-and-safety reasons. She said they wouldn't be able to let anyone carry a cup of tea without a bag through the train. I thought it was a joke. `In the end the member of staff had to walk behind me carrying the tea in case I fell over. This is the first time I've had my own personal tea caddy. He walked two steps behind me the whole way back to my seat.' Mr Fauske said the same thing had happened to other passengers.

A spokesman for CrossCountry Trains, which operates the service, said: `It was a health-and-safety issue. It's to prevent customers pouring hot water over themselves or other people on the train. `We had run out of paper bags and a member of staff stepped in to help out.'

SOURCE

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

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 or 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.

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



7 November, 2010

Attempts to "reach out" to Muslims have been an abject failure

A new international poll shows the folly of Washington's strategy of winning Muslim "hearts and minds." Despite all our help, Muslims still hate us. Titled "The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other," the new Pew study reveals that Muslim countries generally view Westerners as violent and immoral. Large majorities of even British Muslims think Westerners are "selfish" and "arrogant."

Above all, foreign Muslims hate American foreign policy, which in a disturbingly large share of their minds justifies terrorism. Fully 57% of Jordanians think it's OK to attack civilians in jihad. A simple majority of Egyptians agree.

Even so-called moderate leaders are against us. "Yes, Muslims are against the West," responded Adnan Abu Odeh, 73, former political adviser to Jordan's King Hussein. "Why? Western foreign policies, especially on two issues: the Palestinian issue and now Iraq. "These are the issues people talk about day and night. And which the news focuses on day and night. And they come to the eyes and ears of the Muslims who have been surveyed, daily in the bloodiest way - it's killing, women screaming and yelling, and soldiers frowning. So what they hate is American foreign policy."

Muslims also blame us for their lack of prosperity. Nearly half of Turks, among the better educated of Mideast Muslims, say Western policies rob them of wealth. This Jordanian pharmacist is typical of respondents: "There is no prosperity because the United States has seized all our products, all our oil and all our wealth. All of it goes to the United States and the West," Hassan Omar Abdel Rahman said. "It is not about the internal politics. Look at Saddam, you see what happened to him - did he come out with anything?" Agreed Mohsen Hamed Hassan, a Cairo doctor: "I believe the American foreign policy is responsible for the greedy image. They support dictatorships because they want their oil."

A majority of Americans more accurately blame Muslim government corruption and a lack of education for chronic Muslim poverty.

Though they are beneficiaries of $10 billion in direct U.S. aid since 9/11, Pakistanis still hold us in contempt. Pew found that most think we are "selfish, immoral and greedy." "The West has an expansionist policy and they want to get hold of this portion of the world," said Sadia Omar, a 34-year-old housewife from Rawalpindi. "They will never be friends with us."

Laughably, majorities of Muslims in Pakistan and the Mideast think we are less "respectful" of women than they are. But perhaps the biggest divide comes over who's responsible for 9/11.
Americans overwhelmingly blame Arab Muslims, while Muslims abroad, including 56% of British Muslims, insist someone else carried out the attacks. Denial, as they say, is not just a river in Egypt.

We suspect Pew would find similar hostility among the American Muslim community if it had included it in its survey. A recent Gallup poll of U.S. Muslims found that, despite herculean outreach efforts and remarkable tolerance toward them, "Muslims are the most likely group to report feeling anger compared with the overall population."

America has gone trillions in debt and sacrificed thousands of its sons and daughters saving Muslims from tyrants and terrorists in Kosovo, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. And this is the thanks we get?

SOURCE





Deaf diplomat who sued British diplomatic service for discrimination loses fight

Jane Cordell, a deaf foreign diplomat who sued the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for discrimination, has lost her case at an employment tribunal.

Ms Cordell, 44, joined the FCO in 2001, and was offered the post of deputy head of mission on Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, earlier this year. Soon afterwards, however, the FCO revoked the offer on the basis that the high cost of providing Ms Cordell with specialist interpreters, estimated at around œ0.5 million over the course of a two-year posting, made the position unfeasible.

Ms Cordell took her case to a London employment tribunal, where she was supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), but lost the case this week.

In the ruling, the tribunal said: "The likely annual cost amounted to five times the claimant's salary or, put another way, it would have paid salaries for five more employees at the claimant's grade. we are aware, of course, that the FCO has a large overall budget, but the likely costs of these adjustments would have to be met from existing resources."

In a statement, Ms Cordell said: "I am proud of working for the FCO and of making a positive difference, particularly in Poland where I helped raise awareness of disability issues. I am also proud to have brought my case to tribunal. People with disabilities and long-term illnesses who want to be economically active and independent need answers to the questions the case poses."

A spokesman for the EHRC said said that the outcome of the trial was disappointing. "It has left her career in a state of limbo as she has no clarity around what level of adjustments the FCO will fund - a decision which directly influences whether she can be posted abroad in the future.

"It is important that reasonable adjustments are provided to allow disabled people to participate fully in the workforce and allow talented people like Jane to realise their full potential."

According to a recent EHRC report on fairness in Britain, only around 50 per cent of disabled people are employed compared to 79 per cent of non-disabled adults. For those disabled people who are employed, there is on average an 11 per cent pay gap between what they earn and what a non-disabled man earns.

SOURCE




Some realism about race and racism in a prominent British Leftist magazine

Words below from "Prospect" magazine -- by Munira Mirza, who is of Pakistani ancestry but who had all her education in England.

The following articles are by people who want to change the way in which racism and diversity are discussed in Britain and question the assumptions of some "official anti-racism." None of them is white and therefore cannot be easily dismissed as ignorant, naive, or unwittingly prejudiced. They write about the effect of anti-racist policies in education, psychiatry and the arts. It is because they care about equality and our common humanity that they wish to challenge some of the assumptions in policymaking today.

The authors make some common points. Race is no longer the significant disadvantage it is often portrayed to be. In a range of areas-educational attainment, career progression, rates of criminality, social mobility-class and socio-economic background are more important. Indeed, a number of ethnic groups in Britain, particularly Indians and Chinese, perform better than average in many areas. Today a higher proportion of people from ethnic minorities enter university than white people and these second and third generation Britons make ambitious career choices.

Perhaps most importantly, we are afraid to discuss race in an honest way, even with our colleagues and friends. The famous Ali G phrase, "Is it cos I is black?" is funny precisely because it hits a nerve. Many of us have seen an innocent remark misinterpreted as racist. Being falsely accused of racism is, at best, unpleasant and at worst, can destroy a career. Meanwhile, some people from ethnic minorities are left unsure whether an opportunity or promotion has been given to them on the basis of merit or box ticking, and can face the quiet resentment of colleagues.

Much more here




Australia: Spanking children OK with nearly 90 per cent of Queensladers

ALMOST nine out of 10 Queenslanders support smacking children. The Sunday Mail-Nine News State of Families Survey has revealed that 85 per cent of people agree parents have the right to smack their children, with more than a third in "strong agreement".

The new data comes in the middle of an explosive debate about physical discipline, reignited by comments last week from international singer Pink. "I think parents need to beat the crap outta their kids," she said during an interview. "I think that the whole spanking thing has gotten all PC."

More Queensland men than women support smacking - 50 per cent of men surveyed "strongly agree" that parents have the right to smack their children, significantly higher than females at 33 per cent.

Australian Childhood Foundation chief executive Dr Joe Tucci said he wasn't surprised by the results, but didn't agree with them. "It doesn't surprise me that parents want to keep the perceived right to discipline their kids," he said. "They think they have the right to self-regulate, but smacking is not the answer.

"I'd be happy if 100 per cent of respondents insisted on parents being allowed to discipline their children, discipline is absolutely essential, but not by physical force. "It is impossible to draw a line in the sand to separate smacking and assault. There is much research to highlight that physical punishment can hinder a child's development."

The Queensland law on physical punishment by parents has been labelled a joke. The foundation and many other child welfare groups have lobbied for many years for clearer guidelines.

"The law at the moment is a farce," Dr Tucci said. "Basically it says if I hit someone else's child I will be in more trouble than I would be if I hit my own. Why should my own son or daughter have less rights than any other child?

"Under section 280 of the Queensland Criminal Code school teachers and others in authority have the right to use force with a child. Luckily, bodies like education departments and child welfare agencies have had the sense to override the law by banning such action."

Section 280 states: It is lawful for a parent or a person in the place of a parent, or for a schoolteacher or master, to use, by way of correction, discipline, management or control, towards a child or pupil, under the person's care such force as is reasonable under the circumstances.

But as a Queensland Police Service spokesperson said: "Each circumstance is considered on its merit."

Dr Tucci said "reasonable" was open to too much interpretation and shouldn't give parents a loophole in court in serious cases. According to the Commissioner for Children and Young People and Child Guardian Elizabeth Fraser, debate should focus on the best method of discipline from a child development perspective rather than parents' rights to discipline.

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 or 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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6 November, 2010

The world's most politically incorrect national leader

He is indeed a phenomenon. Italy was once known for constantly changing governments but no more. Berlusconi remains in charge year after year. The article below describes him as quintessentially Italian and I see it that way too. I quite admire Italians in many ways (particularly their instinctive disrespect for authority) and I always enjoy hearing of Silvio's latest capers -- JR



The late Professor Norberto Bobbio, one of Italy's greatest postwar political thinkers, authors and legal philosophers, once described Silvio Berlusconi as the incarnation of the demagogue of ancient times: "Berlusconi, in essence, is the tyrant of the classics, the man who believes it licit to do what mere mortals only dream. The defining characteristic of the man-tyrant is the belief he 'can' everything."

Bobbio, who witnessed the rise of Mussolini and was active in the anti-Fascist resistance, died in 2004 but spent the last years of his life writing about - and fighting - the phenomenon he termed "Berlusconismo".

Today, as the Italian Prime Minister battles what appears to be the umpteenth personal sex scandal and a first, truly dangerous mutiny inside his party, the prescience of the esteemed professor's observations seems almost unearthly.

"Those who voted Forza Italia," Bobbio wrote in 1996, "did not choose policy but a person … a gentleman, always elegant, well versed in the art of attracting attention … every now and then resorting to the skills of an old clown to tell a joke … equally brilliant at evoking empathy for his role as a victim of plots and conspiracies, of betrayals, and innocent target of cruel enemies and evil allies."

Just as Bobbio pinpointed 14 years ago, Berlusconi this week chose to dismiss another round of sordid revelations and priapic adventures as a "paper storm", a product of the "obsessions" of the print media whipped up by "political enemies".

"So I am passionate about gorgeous girls … better than being gay," he joked.

He also hinted at a meeting of his party's leadership on Thursday that the Mafia might be framing him as a reprisal for recent police successes.

"No one today can rule out with certainty that certain things that are happening are not the fruits of an underworld vendetta," he said. "In what other country in the world would the head of the government have to defend himself against a barrage of made-up stories?"

But this time, the spectre of illegality - Berlusconi's intervention to secure the release from custody of a 17-year-old Moroccan dancer, Karima Keyek, and €5000 ($6993) payments for sex with a 28-year-old escort - has elicited tough criticism not just from his political enemies but from centre-right allies too.

This abuse of the power of his office - asking Milanese police to release the dancer after she was arrested for stealing €3000 from a friend - involved a lie: Berlusconi allegedly told police she was a relative of the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, and she was subsequently freed.

A former political ally, the parliamentary Speaker Gianfranco Fini, warned that if the claims were substantiated the Prime Minister should step down.

"It would indicate a nonchalance, a corruption symptomatic of the use of state office for private gain," Fini said.

Even the right-wing Northern League leader, Umberto Bossi, has criticised Berlusconi's intervention, while the front page of the Berlusconi family newspaper, Il Giornale, did the unthinkable and published critical observations by a right-wing commentator, Marcello Veneziani, who described the Prime Minister's conduct as "ugly".

And yet despite national and international derision sparked this week by the dancer's mention of "bunga bunga" (a mysterious group sex practice), Berlusconi may still have enough support to weather this storm too.

A poll taken before the latest scandal broke revealed that his People of Liberty party remains Italy's most popular.

Berlusconi's seemingly inexplicable ability to be absolved of all sins by so many voters - or indeed have them ignored - has prompted the author and commentator Beppe Severgnini to write a book explaining the phenomenon to non-Italians.

Severgnini says that wherever he travels in the world, people are mystified by the 20 year electoral success of the 74-year-old known as Il Cavaliere.

"There is a reason … In fact, there are 10," says Severgnini. First and foremost, Berlusconi appeals to the everyman.

"Mr B. adores his kids, talks about his mamma, knows his football, makes money, loves new homes, hates rules, tells jokes, swears a bit, adores women, likes to party and is convivial to a fault. He has a long memory and a knack for tactical amnesia.

"He's unconventional, but knows the importance of conforming. He extols the church in the morning, the family in the afternoon, and brings girlfriends home in the evening. [He] is great entertainment value, so he gets away with plenty. Many Italians ignore his conflicts of interest (haven't we all got 'em?), his legal issues (a defendant is easier to like than a judge) and his inappropriate remarks (he's so spontaneous!).

"What do most Italians think? 'He looks like us. He's one of us.' And the ones who don't are afraid he might be."

SOURCE






British Army cadets banned from carrying rifles on Remembrance Day parade because it 'glamorises' weapons

Army cadets have been left ‘bitterly disappointed’ after being banned from carrying rifles on a Remembrance Day parade - amid fears the weapons might 'upset' onlookers. The young cadets have proudly marched with rifles for decades and around 100 had spent months fine-tuning the drill where they would showcase their skills.

But the cadets were left 'gutted' just days before the big event when military top brass cut the rifles from the display following complaints from members of the public. They were warned the rifle display during the march in Plymouth, Devon, could be deemed as 'glamorising' weapons.

Basil Downing-Waite, chairman of the Federation of Plymouth and District Ex Services Associations, which organised the event, said: 'It's political correctness gone mad. I feel bitterly disappointed because it gives the young people a sense of responsibility. ‘They are delighted to do these displays.'

The Remembrance Day march is still due to go ahead, but without rifles.

A senior cadet instructor said the children had been left 'very upset' by the ruling. Police Chief Inspector Brendan Brookshaw said his son Henry and daughter Rosie were 'very disappointed' at the late change. He added: 'This week, the commanding officer for Plymouth cadets told them they couldn't do it any more because some member of the public complained about cadets marching with rifles.

'They have been doing it forever. My children have been doing rifle drill displays for the past four years and I did it when I was a cadet.'

Chief Inspector Brookshaw added that his son was one many Plymouth cadets who marched carrying rifles as part of a Freedom of the City parade in September.

But Devon Cadet Executive Officer Major David Waterworth put an end to the tradition after he ruled that carrying weapons was 'not good for the image' of cadets, who can join between the ages of 12 and 18. He said: 'There is no need for children to appear in public with weapons. It does upset some members of the public. 'There is no need for it. It doesn't reflect our aims and ethos in the Army Cadet Force. We are not soldiers.

'People say it's traditional at Remembrance parades, but there is no need to carry a weapon to remember the dead. 'I stopped it as soon as I heard they were doing it. It's not good for our image to have children carrying weapons in public. 'We are not members of the Armed Forces - we are a youth movement sponsored by the Ministry of Defence.' He added that a ruling against children carrying rifles had been in place for ten years, but had not been enforced until now.

SOURCE





New men are useless morons, says British TV presenter

TELEVISION host James May has hit out at a "useless" new generation of men - describing them as "morons" who do not know how to iron a shirt or put up a shelf. He believes even his laddish, testosterone-fuelled hit BBC2 show Top Gear he co-hosts does not portray men in a favourable light - and has instead turned its male presenters into "characters in a sitcom".

May, 47, predicted if men do not return to more masculine roles, women will no longer have a use for them except as sperm donors.

May, who lives with his girlfriend of 10 years, told Radio Times: "I think women are getting a bit bored with blokes being useless. "I keep reading women are better at school and now better at parking, better at navigating. We are sort of laughing at it going, 'Ho ho ho, I'm just a bloke', but really in my lifetime men only will be required to keep sperm at operating temperature and they will have no other function."

The TV presenter - whose Top Gear nickname is Captain Slow due to his driving style and tendency to get lost - has decided to lead the way for men to fight back and regain lost skills. His new series Man Lab is aimed at helping modern men relearn vital skills once cherished by their forefathers. He said: "The decline of practical skills, some of them very day-to-day, among a generation of British men is very worrying - they can't put up a shelf, wire a plug, countersink a screw, iron a shirt. "They believe it is endearing and cute to be useless whereas I think it's boring and everyone's getting sick of it."

He went on to attack Top Gear, the show which made him famous, saying it was no longer about cars and more about the trio of presenters - May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond - getting themselves into a pickle. He said: "It's really almost a sitcom now, so we are characters.

"When I started, Top Gear was a car show about cars, and I was interested in the technology but also the sociology and the artistry of them ... the shapes and the colours. "That was something I've always been into. But it's a different programme now, it's turned into something else.

"Ultimately we do know what we're talking about and we do let that be known occasionally. "Very subtly, every now and then, you think, Oh, actually, they do love their subject and they do know a bit about it.

"And when everything goes wrong and we laugh about it, sometimes it winds me up. "I think 'Oh, for God's sake, can't we do something properly that will work, not that has to catch fire or fall over?' But I think I'm probably alone on that.

"That whole culture of being moronic that kind of grew out of TV sitcoms and popular media has produced this culture of laddish blokeishness." He blamed the move away from old-fashioned masculinity partly on 'lads magazines' such as Zoo, Nuts and Loaded, and said it was a shame that traditional male hobbies were now seen as unfashionable.

He said: "There's this idea that men aren't allowed to be interested in these things as it is a bit sad or a bit weird. "But enthusiasms are good. Hobbies are healthy. They don't harm anybody. "It's the people who don't have them that end up going mad and shooting people."

SOURCE




Leftist misrepresentations of libertarians go right back to Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903)

The reason Herbert Spencer has fallen from grace is largely due to the label that has been attached to him, a label that oddly enough bears Darwin's name, and that is "social Darwinist." The implication is that Spencer took Darwin's theory and applied it to social evolution in human societies.

The responsibility for the besmirching and virtual destruction of the reputation of Herbert Spencer can be laid the door of one man, the author of Social Darwinism in American Thought 1860-1915, Richard Hofstadter. His book, a hostile critique of Spencer's work, published in 1944, sold in large numbers and was very influential, especially in academic circles. It claimed that Spencer had used evolution to justify economic and social inequality, and to support a political stance of extreme conservatism, which led, amongst other things, to the eugenics movement. In simple terms, it is as if Spencer's phrase, "the survival of the fittest," had been claimed by him as the basis of a political doctrine.

But there's a problem with Hofstadter's celebrated work: His claims bear almost no resemblance to the real Herbert Spencer. In fact, as Princeton University economist Tim Leonard argues in a provocative new title "Origins of the Myth of Social Darwinism," which is forthcoming from the Journal of Economics Behavior and Organization, Hofstadter is guilty of distorting Spencer's free market views and smearing them with the taint of racist Darwinian collectivism.

And yet Hofstadter's influence remains pervasive. His view of Spencer is often repeated in academic books, as Roderick T. Long points out: Textbooks summarize Spencer in a few lines as a "Social Darwinist" who preached "might makes right" and advocated letting the poor die of starvation in order to weed out the unfit - a description unlikely to win him readers.

These comments are grossly unjust, as Long explains: "The textbook summary is absurd, of course. Far from being a proponent of "might makes right," Spencer wrote that the "desire to command is essentially a barbarous desire" because it "implies an appeal to force," which is "inconsistent with the first law of morality" and "radically wrong." While Spencer opposed tax-funded welfare programs, he strongly supported voluntary charity, and indeed devoted ten chapters of his Principles of Ethics to a discussion of the duty of "positive beneficence."

I think it is useful at this point to look at Hofstadter's background and bias. Hofstadter was born in 1916 in the United States, graduated from Buffalo University, and went on to receive his PhD from Columbia University. He joined the Communist party in 1938 and, although he became disillusioned with the Marxists, he still continued to oppose the free market, saying, "I hate capitalism and everything that goes with it."[7] He was an historian very much in sympathy with the American Left during the New Deal era of American politics. Subsequently many left-liberal writers have quoted Hofstadter's references to Spencer without troubling to study Spencer's original work, thus perpetuating the misrepresentation.

As George H. Smith points out: " Probably no intellectual has suffered more distortion and abuse than Spencer. He is continually condemned for things he never said - indeed, he is taken to task for things he explicitly denied. The target of academic criticism is usually the mythical Spencer rather than the real Spencer; and although some critics may derive immense satisfaction from their devastating refutations of a Spencer who never existed, these treatments hinder rather than advance the cause of knowledge."

The most frequently quoted passage of Spencer's work, by Hofstadter and others wishing to smear Spencer's reputation, is: "If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best they should die.

This does sound harsh, but what the Spencer-knockers fail to quote is the first sentence of the very next paragraph, which transforms its meaning: "Of course, in so far as the severity of this process is mitigated by the spontaneous sympathy of men for each other, it is proper that it should be mitigated."

Thus his argument is that the mitigation of natural selection by human benevolence trumps the benefit resulting from the death of the unfit. In other words it is better to respond to our natural sympathy and save the unfit rather than let them die. This then conveys quite a different meaning from the original sentence when quoted on its own.

It is not surprising then that since the tarnishing of Spencer's reputation (unjustly in my view), he is not regarded with the same respect as he was in his own day, and indeed is rarely studied in universities today. The most damning criticism of all is that his ideas led to the eugenics movement, which again is absolutely untrue.

As Damon W. Root explains: "Eugenics, which is based on racism, coercion, and collectivism, was alien to everything Spencer believed.

Internet sites too, often give Herbert Spencer a bad name. One website devoted to explaining evolution, and described by Richard Dawkins as "deeply impressive", names Herbert Spencer as the "father of Social Darwinism as an ethical theory." It goes on to describe the applications of Social Darwinism: "Social Darwinism was used to justify numerous exploits which we classify as of dubious moral value today. Colonialism was seen as natural and inevitable, and given justification through Social Darwinian ethics - people saw natives as being weaker and more unfit to survive, and therefore felt justified in seizing land and resources. Social Darwinism applied to military action as well; the argument went that the strongest military would win, and would therefore be the most fit. Casualties on the losing side, of course, were written off as the natural result of their unfit status. Finally it gave the ethical nod to brutal colonial governments who used oppressive tactics against their subjects."

This is what Herbert Spencer has to say about colonialism: "Moreover, colonial government, properly so called, cannot be carried on without transgressing the rights of the colonists. For if, as generally happens, the colonists are dictated to by authorities sent out from the mother country, then the law of equal freedom is broken in their persons, as much as by any other kind of autocratic rule." It is clear from this statement that Spencer is opposed to colonialism.

Libertarian Prophet?

Despite the fact that in Herbert Spencer's day the term libertarian did not exist, I think Spencer can be classified as an early spokesperson and visionary of the libertarian movement - or, to use Roderick T. Long's expression, he can be described as a "Libertarian Prophet." I believe that Spencer not only expressed libertarian ideas succinctly but also presented a libertarian vision for the future. I will give some examples.

In ethics Spencer derived a "law of equal Freedom," which states that: "every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.

This is pure libertarianism. Roderick T. Long elaborates: "Spencer proceeded to deduce, from the Law of Equal Freedom, the existence of rights to freedom of speech, press, and religion; bodily integrity; private property; and commercial exchange - virtually the entire policy menu of today's libertarians."

Much more HERE

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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 or 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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5 November, 2010

The "rigid" British social class myth

by Peter Saunders

I spent last weekend at the ‘Battle of Ideas’ conference in London, on a panel debating the relevance of social class in contemporary Britain. The topic was prompted by the election of the first Old Etonian Prime Minister since 1964.

British intellectuals are obsessed by class divisions. When television producers are not busy filming Edwardian upstairs-downstairs dramas, movie-makers are working on tales of plucky steel workers being made redundant by Thatcher, or colliery brass bands stoically playing on after the pit has closed, or miners’ sons wanting to be ballet dancers as their fathers go on strike. As economist Peter Bauer put it in a pamphlet 30 years ago, British opinion-formers have ‘class on the brain.’

So, nowadays, do British politicians. In the last three years of the Labour government, three official reports were commissioned on class inequality. They all concluded that Britain is an unfair society where lower class children are blocked from realising their potential. Former cabinet minister Alan Milburn claimed in one of these reports: ‘Birth, not worth, has become more and more a determinant of people’s life chances,’ and he described Britain as ‘a closed shop society.’ Not to be outdone, the Tories then produced a report of their own, which proclaimed: ‘Social mobility has ground to a halt.’

Very similar claims were made by my fellow-panellists at the Battle of Ideas debate. One, a journalist from the left-wing tabloid The Daily Mirror, told the audience: ‘Your parents’ occupation will almost determine your occupation.’ Another, a sociologist at a FE college, told us: ‘Upward social mobility is a total myth.’

Now, I recently wrote a review of the evidence on social mobility in Britain. It showed that social mobility is extensive, both up and down. More than half the population is in a different social class from the one it was born into; one-third of professional-managerial people come from manual worker backgrounds; one in seven sons born to professional/managerial fathers end up as manual workers. Britain is remarkably meritocratic: somebody’s raw ability, measured by an IQ test at age 11, is more than twice as important as their class origins in predicting their class destination.

Why, given this evidence, do intellectuals continue to claim Britain is an unfair, class-ridden country? And does this repeated falsehood matter?

I think the resilience of the myth may have something to do with the survival of the monarchy and aristocracy at the very top of British society. This upper class froth gives credence to left-wing claims that birth matters more than worth, even though this doesn’t apply to the other 99% of us.

And yes, these claims do matter, because they send out such a negative and counter-productive message to working class children. The evidence tells us that, if you are bright and you work hard, there is nothing to stop you from succeeding in Britain, no matter where you start. But working class families are being told by Labour politicians, Daily Mirror journalists, and Marxist FE lecturers that it’s all hopeless, the game is rigged, and their future is pre-determined. Nothing is more likely to prevent children from succeeding than being told by those in authority that there is no point in them even trying.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated November 5. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.





British judge hits out after father charged with kidnap for teaching bullies a lesson

A judge has expressed his disbelief and anger at the case of a concerned dad who was charged with kidnap after trying to make a bully apologise to his sons. Judge Peter Bowers questioned why Kevin Moore, 44, was charged with the serious offence, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, after such a minor incident.

Teesside Crown Court heard that Mr Moore snapped after a group of teenagers began name-calling and throwing berries as his young two sons and a group of other children were attending a dance class inside a church hall.

He was arrested after taking one of the teenagers to apologise to the group of children for being abusive and aggressive. Mr Moore had pursued the 13-year-old and put him in his car before driving him a short distance to a church hall where the younger children were attending a dancing class. In the end, both sets of youngsters apologised for the dispute and the teenager, who had not struck anyone, returned to join his friends.

At a hearing in August, Judge Peter Bowers said after reading an outline of the case: 'Can I be like Victor Meldrew and say: "I don't believe it?".' He said Moore's conduct was, at worst, behaviour that could have caused alarm to others, and asked for a review of the case by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Yesterday, two hearings later, the CPS accepted a guilty plea to a much-reduced charge of common assault, and Moore was given an 18-month conditional discharge.

Judge Bowers ordered the Mr Moore, from Saltburn, east Cleveland, to pay £250 compensation, but added: 'I am not going to make you pay any costs because this was not what anyone would really call a kidnapping.'

Senior prosecutor Jolyon Perks said the charge was 'academically correct' but accepted the plea to common assault.

Peter Sabiston, in mitigation, said: 'A bit of common sense exercised by all parties at an earlier stage might have resolved this before it reached crown court.' The case is thought to have run up a bill of thousands of pounds and prosecutors were accused of not using common sense.

Fiona McEvoy, of the TayPayers' Alliance, said: 'This whole situation will have cost taxpayers a fortune at a time when they can least afford it. 'It sounds as thought this shambles could have been avoided with a bit of common sense.'

After the case, Mr Moore, an out-of-work contractor told of his worries at facing a kidnap charge, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. 'The implications of that word are horrifying,' he said. 'All I ever wanted was an apology for everyone. 'I admitted I got a bit over the top and irate, but I was not flying off the handle.'

Mr Perks told the court that the 'kidnapped' teenager was distressed by the incident on July 5 in Redcar. One witness called the police because they thought the boy was being kidnapped.

Mr Sabiston said: 'This was no more than a concerned parent, perhaps over-reacting and grabbing hold of the child.' He added: 'It is one of those matters where perhaps society years ago would have taken a different view. 'It is a tragedy for everybody that this has ended up at the crown court.'

Judge Bowers told Mr Moore it was a shame it had taken so long for the kidnap charge to be changed, but warned him to control his temper.

SOURCE




Sellouts at the NAACP

Joseph C. Phillips

For decades the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People fought the good fight against racial discrimination. The organization was instrumental in defeating Jim Crow and discrimination in the work-place; it led the charge in establishing voting rights for all and equal access to quality education. Even now the NAACP does some good work in local communities. However, as a national civil-rights organization, it has lost its way.

In his seminal book, “The Souls of Black Folk,” NAACP co-founder, W.E.B. Dubois describes awakening to a morning “when men ask of the workmen, not ‘Is he white?’ but ‘Can he work?’ When men ask artists, not ‘Are they black?’ but ‘Do they know?’”

Sadly, the NAACP has veered far from Dubois’ vision and the realization of the principle of racial non-discrimination. The NAACP is now a defender of a system of racial spoils, a champion of big government, and a promoter of progressive politics. In short, the organization has been transformed into an enforcement arm of the Democrat Party. And that enforcement is achieved through the use of race as a weapon.

The NAACP’s recent report on racism within the Tea Party is a rather clumsy attempt at wielding that weapon in order to demonize political opposition to the Democrat agenda. It is also dangerous because it undermines black political and cultural progress.

The Tea Party has steadfastly held to a few core principles: limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets. The NAACP leaders have made it their mission to paint these objective and decidedly race-neutral positions into “white-supremacist beliefs.” The difficulty, of course is that there has never been a sign on the Tea Party door saying “whites only.” There is a difference between a blocked door and a door through which one refuses to enter. Woe to any people who adopt as a measure of ethnic authenticity the belief that limited government, fiscal restraint on the part of the federal government, and free-market capitalism as antithetical to their ultimate success, and who further come to believe that those principles are, in fact, the tools of their oppressor.

Sadder still is when that misguided vision becomes a form of political and cultural indoctrination. Consider what I witnessed while attending an NAACP youth council luncheon.

After the luncheon program, the local NAACP director rose to deliver her closing remarks. She began by discussing the plight of a death-row inmate in Atlanta. She then asked the children if lynching in America was still going on. In one loud voice the children answered YES! The director then proceeded to warn the audience that the Ku Klux Klan and other racial hate-groups were on the rise. I sat in a bit of a daze. My first thought was, “This organization is living in a time-warp.” Yes, racism still exists. Yes, idiocy still exists; I suspect hatred and bigotry in some form will always exist. If, however, the NAACP leadership still believes that the KKK is the chief impediment to black success, then as leaders, they have defined themselves as irrelevant. The fact that the organization would teach black children that black people are despised means the organization has sold-out its original charter and is now worthless!

Perhaps, it is time for the NAACP to change its moniker. I will leave it up to the members of the former august organization to choose its new name. I would, however, like to suggest that they consider “The National Association for the Advancement of Progressive Politics Everywhere” or NAAPPE. The members of the new organization could then rewrite their charter to reflect the true aims of their political advocacy.

For instance, NAAPPE would be very candid in its belief that white racism is the primary cause of black wretchedness. For this reason, NAPPE must have as its main occupation the sniffing out of every last vestige of racism in America. Like hound-dogs, NAAPPE members will sniff through the cultural and political landscape and point when they pick up the scent of racism, especially when that scent seems to emanate from the ranks of all those who oppose the Democrat Party and its national agenda, or who oppose those political groups allied with the Democrat Party.

Unlike NAAPPE, the NAACP simply can’t have it both ways. The organization can’t profess that it is the last word on civil rights and at the same time be an arm of ANY political party. Its moniker can’t announce that it is fighting for racial advancement and at the same time the body remains ambivalent about a policy that results in the death of more black people than heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined. The NAACP can’t claim the leadership of the black community and then stand idly by while members of the Congressional Black Caucus garner favor (and campaign donations) from the teachers unions, while selling-out the interests of black schoolchildren in Washington D.C. And it can certainly no longer claim to be a civil rights organization while at the same time it advocates a system of governance that relies on redistributing the fruits of one man’s labor in service of other men.

SOURCE






Moral evil is the greatest modern plague

Coinciding with the decline of Christian morality

The two greatest moral catastrophes of the twentieth century, wrought by Lenin and Hitler, were perverse effects of the Enlightenment. Lenin and Hitler were creatures of the Enlightenment not in the sense that they were enlightened, of course, but in the sense that they believed they had the right and the duty to act in accordance with their own unaided deductions from their own first principles. Everything else they regarded as sentimentality. Lenin preached no mercy to the non-proletarian, Hitler none to the Jew. The truth of their theories, supposedly rational and indubitable, was more evident to them, more real in their minds, than the millions killed as a consequence of those theories. If a syllogism ended in a command to commit unspeakable evil, you did not doubt the premises or the argument but obeyed the command.

This post-Enlightenment way of thinking continues to have its defenders. The celebrated British historian Eric Hobsbawm, a lifelong Marxist, said not long ago that had the Soviet Union turned out much better than it did, the deaths of 20 million to achieve it would have been a worthwhile price to pay. One cannot accuse Hobsbawm of thinking small.

That evil has not disappeared pari passu with German measles puzzles and troubles us. Evil remains a conundrum, as evidenced by Marxist literary theorist Terry Eagleton’s recently published book On Evil. Eagleton is not one of those Marxists for whom, like the late historian and Stalin apologist Edward Hallett Carr, the problem of evil does not exist. “I don’t think there are such things as bad people,” Carr once said. “To us Hitler, at the moment, seems a bad man, but will they think Hitler a bad man in a hundred years’ time, or will they think the German society of the thirties bad?”

Eagleton sees clearly that this will not do. Helping him in this recognition is that he is a Christian as well as a Marxist, and no Christian can believe wholly in social determinism. The problem of the human heart is real, not just a remediable social artifact. The relationship between society and human behavior is dialectical, Eagleton believes. Society has its effect, but it is acting on an already imperfect nature, which in turn is bound to produce an imperfect society.

Significantly, Eagleton begins his book by citing the case of two ten-year-old British boys who abducted, tortured, and killed three-year-old Jamie Bulger in 1993. Here is the opposite of childhood innocence, for the two boys knew that what they were doing was deeply wrong but went ahead and did it anyway. The human mystery is that neither their environment nor their nature can fully explain them. Man is not only wolf to man; he is mystery to man.

More HERE

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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 or 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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4 November, 2010

Curse the judge, shout fanatics as the Muslim girl who knifed British MP smiles as she gets "life" in prison

A judge was subjected to a tirade of abuse in his own courtroom yesterday as he jailed an Al Qaeda-inspired Muslim woman for attempting to assassinate an MP.

Islamist protesters harangued Mr Justice Cooke from the public gallery at the Old Bailey, shouting ‘Allahu akbar’ (‘God is great’), ‘British go to hell’ and ‘Curse the judge’.

The outbursts came as Roshonara Choudhry, 21, was sentenced to life imprisonment for stabbing former minister Stephen Timms. Choudhry smiled broadly as the judge told her: ‘You said you ruined the rest of your life. You said it was worth it. You said you wanted to be a martyr.’

Choudhary has been found guilty of trying to murder Labour MP Stephen Timms. Today it can be revealed she had a hit list of politicians

Outside, a second group demonstrated as the judge told the high-flying student – who stabbed the politician twice in the stomach as ‘punishment’ for voting for the Iraq invasion – that she must serve at least 15 years behind bars.

The chaotic scenes unfolded as Home Secretary Theresa May dramatically revealed that the Al Qaeda gang behind last week’s ‘Lockerbie-style’ cargo plane bomb plot are already working in the UK.

In court the judge pointedly contrasted Mr Timms’ Christian beliefs with the ‘distorted thinking’ of his attacker, who refused to recognise the court and appeared by videolink for her sentencing.

‘I understand that he (Mr Timms) brings to bear his own faith, which upholds very different values from those which appear to have driven this defendant,’ he said. ‘Those values are those upon which the common law of this country was founded and include respect and love for one’s neighbour, for the foreigner in the land, and for those who consider themselves enemies, all as part of one’s love of God. ‘These values were the basis of our system of law and justice and I trust that they will remain so as well as motivating those, like Mr Timms, who hold public office.’

The stabbed MP yesterday backed calls for an overhaul of U.S. websites hosting terror videos. The MP, attacked at a constituency surgery, said: ‘My real worry about it all is that a very bright young woman with everything to live for would reach the conclusion that she should throw it all away by attempting to kill the local MP.

‘It is puzzling and alarming that she seems to have reached the conclusion by spending time on some website. ‘That raises questions about what’s on the web. As I understand it, the material she accessed would be illegal if it were hosted in the UK.’

Hundreds of videos inciting violence, including clips by the U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki who inspired Choudhry to attempt to assassinate the MP, were removed from YouTube yesterday.

Their removal followed a private speech in the United States by security minister Baroness Neville-Jones in which she called on the White House to ‘take down this hateful material’.

Mr Timms, 55, describing the moment he was stabbed in East London in May by the smiling student, said: ‘I shouted out, “What was that for?”’ ‘That was the last thing that I expected to happen and there was absolutely no explanation to me. She didn’t say a word. It was a complete bolt out of the blue.’

After being disarmed by the MP’s assistant and held by a security guard, Choudhry told detectives the stabbing was ‘to get revenge for the people of Iraq’.

Sentencing Choudhry after she was found guilty of attempted murder and two counts of having an offensive weapon, the judge said that if she had succeeded in killing Mr Timms he would have given her a whole-life sentence, meaning she would never be released.

He told her: ‘You intended to kill in a political cause and to strike at those in Government by doing so. ‘You did so as a matter of deliberate decision-making, however skewed your reasons, from listening to those Muslims who incite such action on the internet.

‘You are an intelligent young lady who has absorbed immoral ideas and wrong patterns of thinking and attitudes. ‘It is not only possible, but I also hope that you will come to understand the distorted nature of your thinking, the evil that you have done and planned to do, and repent of it.’

He added: ‘You do not suffer from any mental disease. You have simply committed evil acts coolly and deliberately.'

Choudhry, from East Ham, East London, spoke only to confirm her name when she appeared by videolink for sentencing yesterday. Wearing a black headscarf, she sat placidly blinking behind her glasses as she watched proceedings on a screen in front of her.

The court heard she was a straight-A pupil and top university student at King’s College, London. She had hoped to become a teacher but dropped out weeks before carrying out the attack.

English language lecturer Alan Fortune said she was an outstanding student who had been expected to achieve a first class honours degree, adding: ‘The world was her oyster.’

SOURCE







White girl claims to be black

Under Australia's absurd laws, someone with a tiny amount of Aboriginal ancestry can claim to be an Aborigine -- and get the "affirmative action" benefits of that



A YOUNG Aborigine was "shocked" and "humiliated" to hear she might not look "indigenous" enough for a job promoting the Aboriginal employment initiative GenerationOne, founded by the mining entrepreneur Andrew Forrest.

Tarran Betterridge, 24, a Canberra university student, applied for the post through an ACT company, Epic Promotions, which had been asked to find five people of "indigenous heritage" to staff a stall at Westfield in Canberra handing out flyers for GenerationOne.

Ms Betterridge was interviewed for 20 minutes on October 20 and told she was "perfect". However, the interviewer, Emanuela D'Annibale, said she first had to check with her client, an agency called Let's Launch, because of guidelines specifiying it wanted "indigenous-looking" people for the job. Ms D'Annibale then took Ms Betterridge's photo, but denies forwarding it.

Ms Betterridge's mother is white and her father is a Wiradjuri man from the Dubbo area.

When Ms Betterridge phoned the next day, Ms D'Annibale told her she was not needed as Let's Launch had already found enough casual employees.

Yesterday Ms D'Annibale confirmed working to guidelines that required at least some recruits to "look" indigenous. Ms Betterridge was "lovely", she said, but "if you're promoting Italian pasta, and you put Asians there, how's that going to look? Wouldn't you pick an Italian to promote the Italian pasta?"

She would have liked to hire Ms Betterridge anyway because "she was really nice, she had so much knowledge and background … but the reason we needed at least one person who looked indigenous [was] so that it would be friendlier to indigenous people".

"I wouldn't have picked her for Aboriginal at all … to me she looked like an Aussie girl." She said Ms Betterridge hadn't been hired because the agency didn't need five people.

Ms Betterridge is "shocked a company that wants to increase indigenous employment would question hiring a person because they do not meet the colour standard".

The chief executive of GenerationOne, Tim Gartrell, expressed repugnance at the claims last night. He said he instructed those responsible to apologise, and would no longer use the recruiting contractor's services. "The comment made by a recruiting contractor is completely inappropriate and doesn't reflect the views, practice or ethos of anyone in GenerationOne," he said.

Despite this, the NSW Aboriginal Land Council seized on the episode to attack GenerationOne, accusing it of abetting "staggering" discrimination against Ms Betterridge. "For them to deny an Aboriginal student a job - a real job - because of the colour of her skin shows that GenerationOne is not interested in walking the talk," its chairwoman, Bev Manton, said.

Let's Launch was not available for a formal response last night, but unofficially denied issuing the guidelines quoted by Ms D'Annibale.

SOURCE









No whites need apply

I understand that a movie called “For Colored Girls” is probably going to have an all-black cast. But why an all-black crew?

“Moviemaker Tyler Perry has attacked reports suggesting he only hires African-Americans for his movies, insisting he does not discriminate. An all-black cast for the actor/director’s latest film, For Colored Girls, was expected, but new reports suggest his entire crew was made up of non-white people as well. But Perry insists he never sets out to create an all-black working environment.” See here

—Sure, so even though blacks are 16% of the population he made sure they were 100% of the crew, but no, he doesn’t discriminate, keep reading:

“He tells WENN, “I don’t discriminate. I want to know who’s the best for the job but I will ask, ‘Is there a black person that is just as good?’ when we’re in the hiring process because it’s very important to me that the kids, 19 and 20-year-old PAs (production assistants) running around, see it.”

—How about “is there a white person that’s just as good?” No, that sounds racist. Yet if you replace the word “white” with “black,” then it’s perfectly fine.

“They’re looking at me but I want to make sure there’s a fair representation all around. My make-up department is a black woman, the hair department is a black woman, the producers are black. I’ve got black grips, black electricians.”

—Is an all-black crew a fair representation of what? Blacks? I guess it is.

“These people are almost non-existent in the business, so trying to find them has been a bit difficult but I hope more people will go into it and bring their best. I’m not gonna hire you just because you’re black. You gotta be good at the job because I run a tight ship and we all do above and beyond. “Just because you’re black, that don’t mean you’re in. You have to do a good job.”"

—What a liar, of course he’s going to hire you because you’re black, specially when he’s asking “‘Is there a black person that is just as good?” People like Perry are always whining about bigotry and discrimination, but when it comes to hiring workers, they’re just as bigoted, if not more.

SOURCE (See the original for links)




Unfair trade: Ethical food ‘is not lifting Third World farmers out of poverty’

Sales of its food have boomed on the back of promises that it delivers a fair price and decent working conditions to Third World farmers. But Fairtrade products are failing to lift the farmers out of poverty, according to a study published today.

Less than 25 per cent of the price premium paid by shoppers for Fairtrade’s ‘ethical food’, such as coffee and chocolate, reaches the farmer, the controversial think-tank report suggests.

The study from the Institute of Economic Affairs says the high cost of joining the scheme prevents many of the poorest farmers from becoming members. The certification charge to join the organisation starts at £1,570 in the first year, which the IEA says is a huge sum for producers in the poorest countries.

The report – Fairtrade Without the Froth – says: ‘Fairtrade’s selling point to customers is that by paying a premium and buying certified products they will help producers in developing countries. ‘Although at the margins this may be true, research shows that Fairtrade is not a strategy for long-term development. Conventional trade is often more effective. ‘It is likely that producers end up with only a small fraction of the extra margin consumers pay.

‘Even analysts sympathetic to the movement have suggested that only 25 per cent of the premium reaches producers. No study ever produced has shown that the benefit to producers anything like matches the price premium paid.’

In fact, a number of retailers have made great play of the fact that their Fairtrade food and other products cost no more than those from conventional sources, so consumers are not paying any premium.

Fairtrade works with 1.3million farmers and, taking into account their workers and dependants, supports around seven million people.

In Britain, the Fairtrade Foundation, an independent non-profit organisation, licenses use of the Fairtrade mark. The foundation is part of Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International.

Big names such as Cadbury Dairy Milk, Starbucks, Green & Black’s and Ben & Jerry’s have added their commercial weight to the scheme. The net effect is that UK sales of Fairtrade products rose 12 per cent last year to reach £800million.

The IEA report follows studies by right of centre think-tanks, which have argued that the phenomenon actually keeps Third World farmers poor.

But Barbara Crowther, policy director of the Fairtrade Foundation, hit back at the criticism. ‘Increasingly, consumers are not paying any extra for Fairtrade products,’ she said. ‘For example, Sainsbury’s did not put up prices when it moved to Fairtrade bananas and Cadbury did not make its Dairy Milk bar any more expensive. ‘It is spurious to suggest Fairtrade costs more. People may choose to pay more for Fairtrade products, but that might be because of other attributes, in terms of quality and taste.’

She said the registration fees were not expensive and reflected the cost of auditing the farms involved. A fee of £1,570 could cover a farming co-op of 50 growers, which amounts to an average of just over £30 each.

‘Many studies have been published by independent academics which demonstrate that Fairtrade is making a real difference to people’s lives,’ she said.

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 or 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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3 November, 2010

A message to Britain's illiberal Nudge Industry: push off

The ‘politics of the brain’ is a threat to choice, freedom and democracy – which is why spiked is declaring war against it

In earlier eras, the revelation that there was a Behavioural Insight Team at the heart of government, dedicated to finding ways to reshape the public’s thoughts, choices and actions, would have caused outrage. It would have brought to mind some of the darker antics of the Soviet Union, which treated certain beliefs as mental illnesses to be fixed, or maybe O’Brien, the torturer in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, who boasts that the human mind is ‘infinitely malleable’.

Yet the news that David Cameron has a Behavioural Insight Team inside Downing Street, and what’s more that it is increasingly influential within the Lib-Con coalition, has been treated as if were a perfectly normal, even admirable thing. Have we lost our minds?

If the distinctive feature of the New Labour government when it came to power in 1997 was its ‘nanny statism’ (not a perfect label for New Labour authoritarianism by any means), then the distinctive feature of politics today is nudge statism – the conviction amongst our leaders that they have both the right and the capacity to invade our brains and reshape how we perceive and interact with the world around us. They refer to it as ‘the politics of the brain’, and everyone from right-leaning supporters of Cameron’s Tories to liberal commentators, from Tory advisers inside Downing Street to trendy young thinkers at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) who run a sinister-sounding thing called the Social Brain Project, believes the politics of the brain is a good, morally upstanding, workable idea.

They couldn’t be more wrong. And just as spiked was at the forefront of the battle against New Labour’s politics of behaviour for 10 years, so we intend to rally our intellectual troops against the politics of the brain today.

The most shocking thing about the recent reports on Cameron’s Behavioural Insight Team is that nobody has been shocked by them. The existence of a team which, in the words of one Cabinet Office paper, believes that ‘people are sometimes seemingly irrational’ and therefore the state must ‘influence behaviour through public policy’, has been shrugged off or given the nod. The Guardian casually reported that ‘deputy PM Nick Clegg said he believed the team could change the way citizens think’. Criticisms of the ‘Nudge Unit’ (as it is also known) have focused on whether it will really follow through on its promise to clean up the citizenry’s muddled minds. There is ‘little of actual substance’, complained one left-leaning commentator, ‘begging the question [of whether] the Conservatives have wholeheartedly embraced this agenda’. Another hack advised the government that ‘nudges should be deployed sparingly’.

Forget that. The nudge unit should actually be stuck at the very top of the much-discussed bonfire of the quangos. Formally instituted by Cameron in September, the team is made up of people such as David Halpern, former adviser to Tony Blair and co-author of the genuinely freaky Cabinet Office Paper Mindspace: Influencing Behaviour Through Public Policy, which comes complete with a cover illustration of the human brain with the words ‘habit’, ‘ego’, ‘priming’ and ‘incentives’ inside it; Paul Dolan, another brain expert; various neuroscientists and psychologists; and external advisers such as Richard Thaler, co-author of the hugely influential book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Wealth, Health and Happiness, from which Cameron and his brain cops derived many of their ideas.

The unit is shot through with social psychology and the new-ish discipline of ‘behavioural economics’, a mish-mash of politics and neuroscience which, as the Mindspace Cabinet Paper points out, has over the past 10 years ‘moved from a fringe activity to one that is increasingly familiar and accepted’. The team’s aim is to find subtle ways to change our behaviour, not through the old, Blair-style bossy approach of telling us what to do, but by offering incentives, by ‘priming’ us with subliminal messaging, by changing the ‘choice architecture’ of our daily lives so that we are influenced, sometimes unconsciously, to behave in what the government considers to be the right way. So flirting with such ideas as a new alcohol labelling system, changing local infrastructure so that we are encouraged (forced?) to walk more frequently, inviting problem gamblers to ban themselves from certain gambling haunts, and offering cash bonuses for healthy behaviour, the nudge unit aims to transform us through some Derren Brown-style mind trickery into the kind of people Cameron might like to hang out with: thin, sober, fit, responsible, boring, braindead.

There are three serious problems with the emerging nudge state. First, it reveals the dramatic downscaling of what politics is about. Once upon a time, the lifeblood of politics was the question of how to create the Good Society. Politics was a struggle over how the world should be shaped or reshaped, and how we might create the conditions in which individuals could realise their potential and pursue their aspirations. Now it’s about remoulding individuals themselves. It’s about finding ways to change how individuals think and behave so that they conform to some preordained, elite-decided view of what a decent person is (booze-free, non-fat, eco-aware). Politics no longer has any macro-visions for society, so instead it aims obsessively to micromanage the way that individuals think.

This trend began under New Labour with the politics of behaviour, where ministers explicitly said they considered it their business to force us to be healthier, more socially active, even happier citizens. The Lib-Cons are taking this politics to a new low by including not only our health and waistlines but also our thoughts and emotions, even our sub-conscious processes, under the remit of the Ministry of Good Behaviour (they don’t actually call it that, but why not?). Bereft of ideas for remaking the world, for boosting and improving society, our leaders take refuge in the brain instead, hoping that they can fiddle with the mental where they cannot get to grips with the social. Controlling individuals’ interaction with the world that currently exists takes the place of what counted for politics for thousands of years, from Aristotle to the Suffragettes: debating how the world should ideally look.

The second problem with the nudge state is that it’s alarmingly illiberal. Built on the idea that individuals are essentially irrational – ‘people are sometimes irrational’, says the Cabinet Office paper; ‘people are often systematically irrational’, prefers the RSA – the elitist politics of the brain treats the mass of the population as not worth seriously engaging with. Indeed its very premise is that we are not rational beings who can be reasoned with, but rather are simply collections of nerve endings and subconscious processes who need to be subjected to a mental MOT.

This is why the proponents of nudgism actively problematise the idea of information, the idea of giving people facts and evidence and political justifications in order that they might make their own decisions. So the Cabinet Office Mindspace report says policymakers have focused too much on providing people with info – about STDs, for example, or climate change – when apparently ‘providing information per se often has surprisingly modest and sometimes unintended impacts’. The report suggests that government should ‘shift the focus of attention away from facts and information, and towards altering the context in which people act’. Boiled down, this means: never mind reason, use pressure. And ideally an underhand, sly form of pressure.

The reason the nudgers are instinctively allergic to providing people with information is that they believe much of our behaviour takes place ‘outside conscious awareness’. Which means it cannot be influenced through such achingly old-fashioned mechanisms as moral debate and engagement but rather should be shifted with a bit of subliminal messaging and healthy-living handouts. Most shockingly of all, the nudge brigade sees it as its responsibility to exercise willpower on our behalf, because apparently we’re too fickle to do it ourselves. The government should become a ‘surrogate willpower’, says Mindspace; government action can ‘augment our freedom’ by pushing us to make the right choices. They don’t only want to remake our minds; they want to become our minds, Big Brother-style. It speaks volumes about the nudge statists that they cannot see what a whopping contradiction in terms it is to label government pressure as ‘freedom’ and external interventions into our brains as the exercising of ‘willpower’.

And the third problem with the nudge state is that it utterly rearranges the traditional democratic relationship. In the modern political era, it is supposed to be governments that shape themselves in response to what people want, not people who reshape their lifestyles in response to what the government wants. Democracy is meant to involve the formulation of a government that expresses the people’s will; it is about the people putting pressure on the authorities to believe in and pursue certain ideals. Under the nudge tyranny that is turned totally on its head, as instead the government devises more and more ways to put pressure on us to change. And it is because spiked values things like liberty, democracy, choice and debate that we hereby declare war on these nudgers above us.

SOURCE






52 Dead in Baghdad Church Siege‏

Where is the media and interantional outrage at the murder fo Christians in Iraq?

The toll from the bloody siege of a Baghdad church rose Monday to 52 dead with dozens more injured, Iraqi officials said.

The standoff began at dusk Sunday when militants wearing suicide vests and armed with grenades attacked the nearby Iraqi stock exchange and then entered the nearby Our Lady of Deliverance church -- one of Baghdad's main Catholic places of worship -- taking about 120 Christians hostage.

Iraqi forces stormed the church after a tense hours-long standoff, freeing the hostages. It was not immediately clear whether the hostages died at the hands of the attackers or during the rescue.

Officials said at least one priest and nine policemen were among the dead. Many of the wounded were women.

The casualty information came from police and officials at hospitals where the dead and wounded were taken. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

There were conflicting accounts about the number of attackers involved in the assault, with Baghdad military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi saying Sunday night that security forces killed eight, while the U.S. military said between five and seven died.

Two police officers on the scene, however, say only three attackers were killed and another seven arrested afterwards.

A cryptically worded statement posted late Sunday on a militant website allegedly by the Islamic State of Iraq appeared to claim responsibility for the attack. The group, which is linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, said it would "exterminate Iraqi Christians" if Muslim women are not freed within 48 hours from churches in Egypt.

Iraqi Christians, who have been frequent targets for Sunni insurgents, have left in droves since the 2003 U.S.-le

SOURCE







The 1,000 steps to justice in Britain: How police and prosecutors must overcome a mountain of form-filling to solve just one burglary

Solving a simple domestic burglary takes more than 1,000 steps by police and prosecutors, it emerged last night. The police watchdog said the growing burden of bureaucracy means bringing a suspect to justice for a house break-in involves more than 30 people in 1,107 actions.

And excessive rules and a risk-averse culture could lead to ‘paralysis’ in the criminal justice system and officers being taken off the front line.

Dru Sharpling, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, added: ‘The criminal justice system has grown in a fragmented and bureaucratic way, slowing down the process, creating waste and stifling innovation.

‘All justice agencies involved are having their budgets cut over the next four years. There will not be enough capacity to sustain the service without reform.’ A breakdown of each individual step in the burglary investigation reveals the astonishing amount of form-filling and needless repetition of tasks.

Inspectors found 70 different forms which had to be filled in to prosecute a burglar. They also found police made 176 entries in the custody record for every suspect. Astonishingly, more than half of the steps involved data entry once a case file had been passed to prosecutors. Every entry was duplicated on up to five computer systems – three for the police, and one each for the courts and Crown Prosecution Service.

Booking in the suspect at the police station involved 38 steps, including 21 checks on their treatment and condition.

Only 98 steps were actually dedicated to investigating the crime. These include finding and labelling evidence, interviewing the suspect and examining the scene.

Each case file went back and forth between different agencies seven times and was copied six times for each agency present at court. Overly rigid rules on how victims were handled imposed more than 30 requirements for every case – even low- level offences such as a stolen phones.

Despite it having fewer criminals to process, the overall cost of the criminal justice system has spiralled by a quarter in just five years to more than £22billion.

HMIC blamed 14 pieces of criminal justice legislation in the past 15 years and a lack of controls for the ballooning amount of paperwork. It warned that the forthcoming cuts to police and CPS budgets meant reform was needed urgently simply to ensure the same number of criminals can still be brought to justice.

The report said: ‘The plethora of guidance has led to a culture of bureaucracy and too much information being prepared or demanded in cases. The overall impact has been multiple layers of requirements. Put simply, more tasks have to be completed to get the previously relatively straightforward job done.’

The report recommended that cases should go to court within 24 hours to speed up the system and defendants should be encouraged to plead guilty to cut the amount of paperwork required for abandoned trials. More trials should take place in video-linked or ‘virtual courts’ and the police and CPS encouraged to pool resources, it added.

Earlier this week it emerged that police must consult a health and safety checklist of 283 hazards before being called out in an emergency.

SOURCE






Australia: Building sandcastles on the beach is "unsafe"!

Is British safety obsession infecting Australia?

Surf Life Saving Queensland has thrown its support behind Sunshine Coast life guards, saying that digging holes and building sandcastles between the flags can pose hazards – but only in more extreme cases.

The Daily reported yesterday that children had been asked to fill in their hole and not dig or build sandcastles in the area between the flags.

Brisbane visitor Gary Roberts, told how he and other beach-goers were left gobsmacked on Friday when a life guard asked a young family to move on because they were playing in the sand in a patrolled zone.

He said the mother and two young children were doing nothing more than building a small castle between the flags and the life guard’s request was met with disbelief by on-lookers.

Mr Roberts said the case of bureaucracy gone crazy would not affect his decision to holiday in the region in the future, but he worried that it would reflect badly in the eyes of interstate and international travellers.

The story was picked up by media outlets around the country and sparked plenty of debate on the Daily’s website. An online poll found 72% believed building sandcastles was part of Australian culture and should be allowed.

Sunshine Coast council’s manager of life guard services, Scott Braby, said that although the council had no hard and fast rules regarding digging and sandcastle construction, it did have a general policy to move on beachgoers if they were posing a hazard to themselves or others.

Sunshine Coast Surf Life Saving services coordinator Aaron Purchase said SLSQ had a similar policy. “From our point of view it would only come into question if it was a big deep hole that was large enough to pose a risk to public safety,” Mr Purchase said.

He said if it was blocking life guard access or vehicle access or at risk of collapse then lifesavers would exercise their judgment and ask the beachgoer to fill the hole in and continue their activities outside the patrolled area.

“If it is posing a risk of sand collapse then they would need to step in,” Mr Purchase said. “We’ve had incidents of this is the past. A while back a guy was digging in a dune at Sunshine Beach and it collapsed – luckily the guys were able to dig him out and resuscitate him.”

But Mr Purchase said kids having a little dig and building small sandcastles within the flagged area was not 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 or 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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2 November, 2010

Britain to "profile" air travellers

Millions of air travellers face sweeping new security tests, including passenger profiling and checks against a secret watchlist, it emerged last night.

Searches could be carried out according to race, ethnicity, age and gender – a move certain to anger civil rights groups fearing Muslims will be disproportionately targeted.

The examinations will also check for criminal convictions, immigration problems and links to terror suspects.

Passenger profiling has been resisted by previous Home Secretaries because it means far greater numbers of travellers will be stopped, searched and barred from flying.

The crackdown came amid further developments in the investigation into the cargo plane bomb plot:
Supergrass

* The two ‘ink bombs’ from Yemen contained 300 grams and 400 grams of explosive PETN, 50 times more than is needed to blow a hole in a plane.

* A tip-off from an ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee and supergrass led to the plot being foiled.

* David Cameron had been kept in the dark over the bomb found at East Midlands Airport for nine hours.

* New restrictions will be placed on freight planes coming from Somalia – the African state known to be home to Al Qaeda cells

* Toner cartridges larger than 500g will also be banned from hand baggage on flights departing from the UK, and on cargo flights unless they originate from a shipper cleared by the Government.

But under the prospective rules people could find themselves placed on enhanced Home Office no-fly lists, which will see them turned away when they arrive at the airport.

Alternatively, they will be added to a larger list of those who should be subject to special measures such as enhanced screening. Many of the passengers will not know why they are being put through rigorous full body searches and other checks.

More controversially, Home Secretary Theresa May has refused to rule out the introduction of passenger profiling. This will anger libertarian Tory MPs and Liberal Democrats who have made much of their wish to end the ‘Big Brother’ state.

But Mrs May told MPs: ‘We are in a constant battle with the terrorists. They are always looking for another way, another innovative way, in which they can try to get around our defences.

'Our job, and the job of our security and intelligence agencies and the police, is to ensure that we are doing all we can to make sure that there are no gaps in our defences.’

Earlier Mr Cameron had stressed Britain must take every possible step to ‘cut out the terrorist cancer’ in the Arabian Peninsula. He praised the work of police and intelligence agencies in preventing terrorists ‘killing and maiming many innocent people, whether here or elsewhere’.

But Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary warned against overreacting. ‘Every time we have a terrorist scare, the first thing that goes out the window is common sense,’ he said. ‘We in the aviation industry are all for effective security measures such as taking knives off passengers, but we are all opposed to ludicrous and ineffective measures.’

The package found at East Midlands Airport surprised many experts by its size. Tests in the U.S. have shown that just 50g of PETN can blow a hole in an aircraft and both ink bombs were far bigger than the 80g of explosives the Christmas Day bomber carried in his underwear.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian who studied in Britain, tried to detonate his device over Detroit.

The device was removed from the UPS aircraft by Leicestershire police officers, working with the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, who boarded the UPS plane at 3.30am on Friday.

However No 10 disclosed that neither Mr Cameron nor the Home Office were told about what was happening at the airport until later that day.

‘Both the Home Office and Downing Street were updated at the same time by the relevant police force,’ the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said. ‘These were decisions taken by the local police force. They were the people on the ground. They were the people best-placed to make these judgments and refer the matter to the Home Secretary, the Home Office and Downing Street as soon as they judged that was the thing to do.’

The spokesman would not be drawn on whether Mr Cameron had been told of the intelligence warning – reportedly received from an MI6 source in Saudi Arabia on Thursday night – which led to the discovery of devices at East Midlands and on a FedEx cargo plane in Dubai. In contrast, the White House has said that the U.S. President had been kept fully informed of developments since Thursday night.

Passenger profiling would see selected travellers given tougher security checks before a flight. Those behaving suspiciously or having an unusual travel pattern could be picked out
Other factors might include racial or religious profiling. This has sparked concern Muslims will be disproportionately targeted.

The profiling could be carried out by airport security staff or through computer analysis. A passenger could be given extra screening if they ‘tick boxes’ such as arriving from a high-risk country, being alone or not having a return flight or luggage.

Currently, airport staff act on suspicious passenger behaviour or specific intelligence instead of profiling.

Countries including the U.S. and Israel already use the system. The idea has been suggested in the UK a number of times in recent years – normally in response to an airline terror alert

In January, Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the UK could move to profiling in response to the Detroit Christmas Day bomb plot. Surprisingly, given the opposition expected from civil liberties groups, the Coalition has now said it will also consider the idea. Home Secretary Theresa May said yesterday all techniques would be examined.

SOURCE





Small firms should be free to fire at will says British enterprise tsar

Companies should be able to fire staff more easily, one of the Coalition’s key advisers said yesterday. Lord Young, who served as Employment Secretary under Margaret Thatcher, said firms were reluctant to create jobs because it was too difficult to get rid of staff.

The peer has been asked by the Prime Minister to come up with a ‘brutally honest’ report on how to overturn the ‘institutional bias’ against small businesses. But he also favours freeing up firms from the layers of red tape imposed over the past two decades.

He said yesterday: ‘Back in the early 1980s, when we had very extensive employment protection, we took it away and as a result employment went up. Firms are inhibited from taking people on if it’s too difficult to let them go if things get tough.’

The peer also took a swipe at government plans to force all employers to pay into pension plans. He said: ‘Things that big companies take in their stride, small companies find difficult.’

His intervention came as the Government announced a range of measures to provide a lifeline to Britain’s 4.8 million small firms – including extending a loan guarantee scheme.

David Cameron admitted that it was difficult to find ways to get banks to lend. ‘You can go for lending agreements with the banks. The trouble is, what I find with lending agreements is that they will promise to do a certain amount of lending to one sector, but they’ll shrink it somewhere else,’ he said on a visit to a business park in Hertfordshire.

The measures unveiled by Business Secretary Vince Cable, Business Minister Mark Prisk and Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude include:

* A target of giving a quarter of government contracts to firms with fewer than 250 employees

* Encouraging social housing tenants to start up businesses from their front rooms

* A £2 billion extension of a loan guarantee scheme for small and medium firms for another four years.

Ministers are also considering a fee for employment tribunals to deter opportunistic claims. And the Government wants to double the length of time employees have to work for a firm before they make a claim against their bosses, from one year to two.

Industry groups welcomed the measures. David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: ‘The Government’s move to bring together policies to support smaller businesses will be seen as a vote of confidence by the firms that really drive the UK economy.

‘We are pleased that the Government has committed to extending the Enterprise Finance Guarantee, which has helped many businesses secure the working capital they need. ‘Moves to simplify public sector procurement processes will also be welcomed.’

SOURCE




Jesus had HIV?

You expect this garbage from enemies of Christiaity but this came from a super-correct pastor

"Today I will start with a three-part sermon on: Jesus was HIV-positive," South African Pastor Xola Skosana recently said in a Sunday church service.

The words initially stunned his congregation in Cape Town's Khayelitsha township into silence, and then set tongues wagging in churches across the country.

Some Christians have been outraged, saying he is portraying Jesus as sexually promiscuous. HIV is mainly transmitted through sex, but can also be spread through needle-sharing, contaminated blood, pregnancy and breastfeeding.

However, as Pastor Skosana told those gathered in the modest Luhlaza High School hall for his weekly services, in many parts of the Bible Jesus put himself in the position of the destitute, the sick and the marginalised.

"Wherever you open the scriptures Jesus puts himself in the shoes of people who experience brokenness. Isaiah 53, for example, clearly paints a picture of Jesus who takes upon himself the infirmities and the brokenness of humanity," he told the BBC.

He is also quick to emphasise that he is using the metaphor to highlight the danger of the HIV/Aids pandemic, which still carries a stigma in South Africa's townships.

"Of course, there's no scientific evidence that Jesus had the HIV virus in his bloodstream," says the pastor, whose non-denominational Hope for Life Ministry is part of a growing charismatic movement in South Africa.

"The best gift we can give to people who are HIV-positive is to help de-stigmatise Aids and create an environment where they know God is not against them, he's not ashamed of them."

But Pastor Mike Bele, who officiates at the Nomzamo Baptist Church in nearby Gugulethu, said most clergy in Khayelitsha and other Cape Town townships are strongly opposed to associating Jesus with HIV. "The subject of my Jesus being HIV-positive is a scathing matter," he says. "I believe no anointed leader with a sound mind about the scriptures and the role of Christ in our lives would deliberately drag the name of Christ to the ground."

For Pastor Bele portraying Jesus as HIV-positive means he becomes part of the problem, not the solution.

"The pastor needs to explain how it came about for him to bring Christ to our level, when Christ is supreme and is God," he says.

"There is a concern that non-believers would mock Christ and try to generalise Christ as opposed to the powerful force we believe him to be."

More HERE






Up From Multiculturalism

Mike Adams

The 2012 presidential election is fast approaching. The five Republican candidates are participating in a nationally televised debate. One of the questions read by the moderator is selected from among dozens submitted by audience members. The question reads: “I am a young immigrant who recently moved to the United States. What are two things I can do to become a success in America?”

Four candidates give responses so vague the audience can hardly discern their meaning. Then the fifth candidate gives her answer, which would soon dominate newspaper headlines across America: “Learn English and adopt Christian values.”

It’s tough to imagine an American politician speaking so bluntly and with such truthfulness. In Germany, however, such a statement was recently uttered by Chancellor Angela Merkel. She had the guts to say that Germany's recent drift towards multiculturalism has been an unmitigated disaster. And she went one step further calling on their immigrants to learn German and adopt Christian values.

Merkel’s remarks were not spontaneous. She was weighing in on a controversy she could hardly avoid. It began when a German central bank board member said his country was being dumbed down by uneducated and unproductive Muslim migrants. The point can hardly be disputed. But no one had the guts to state the obvious.

Merkel rightly understands that subsidizing immigrants does not make a country strong. In fact, it makes a country weak if the subsidies are not made in exchange for compliance with certain demands – such as speaking German and abandoning the Muslim practice of forced marriage.

Even Turkish President Abdullah Gul seems to understand the view articulated by Merkel. He has now publicly encouraged members of the Turkish community living in Germany to master the German language. He goes so far as to suggest that Turkish children living in Germany should master German at ages so young that they will be able to speak without an accent before they reach adulthood.

A recent study showed that around one-third of Germans feel the country is being "over-run by foreigners" and the same percentage feel foreigners should be sent home when jobs are scarce. Nearly 60 percent of the 2,411 people polled thought the four million Muslims in Germany should have their religious practices "significantly curbed."

The Islamic community seeks to use these statistics as proof that they are victims of human rights abuses. Those claims are tough to take seriously when one considers the violent history of Islam. It is a religion of conquest that has historically relied upon the denial of human rights as its chief method of evangelism.

The Islamic community also seeks to use these statistics as proof that Muslims are victims of “prejudice” rising to the level of “Islamophobia.” But even a cursory reading of the Koran shows that they are taught to segregate themselves from “unbelievers” and “infidels.” They have no desire to be integrated. It’s against their religion.

The Islamic community further seeks to use these statistics as proof that they are victims the kind of racism Jews suffered under the rule of Hitler. But these claims are undercut by the torrent of anti-Semitism pouring out of the Muslim world on a daily basis – including, but not limited to, Iranian threats to wipe Israel off the map.

Angela Merkel is simply stating the obvious fact that some cultures are clearly inferior to others. It is not an abuse of human rights to say that people should be educated and productive. It is not prejudiced to judge bad behavior after it happens. It is not racist to set high standards for all races.

The German people are lucky to have a leader like Angela Merkel. God knows we need someone like her here.

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 or 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 November, 2010

Homosexual rights laws are 'a danger to our freedoms'

British Bishops speak out after Christian couple barred from fostering children because of their views on homosexuality go to court

Gay rights laws are eroding Christianity and stifling free speech, Church of England bishops warned yesterday. Senior clerics, including former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, spoke out ahead of a High Court ‘clash of rights’ hearing over whether Christians are fit to foster or adopt children.

The test case starting today involves a couple who say they have been barred from fostering because they refuse to give up their religious belief that homosexuality is unacceptable.

Supporters hope their legal challenge will set a precedent for the rights of Christians to foster children without compromising their faith. But senior bishops fear that if the ruling goes against them, it could have devastating consequences for those with religious beliefs. Either way, they believe the case will determine whether Christians can continue to express their beliefs in this country.

In an open letter, they warned that Labour’s equality laws put homosexual rights over those of others, ‘even though the Office for National Statistics has subsequently shown homosexuals to be just one in 66 of the population’.

The letter is signed by Lord Carey, the Bishop of Winchester Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Chester Rt Rev Peter Forster, and Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester.

They wrote: ‘The High Court is to be asked to rule on whether Christians are “fit people” to adopt or foster children – or whether they will be excluded, regardless of the needs of children, from doing so because of the requirements of homosexual rights. ‘Research clearly establishes that children flourish best in a family with both a mother and father in a committed relationship. ‘The supporters of homosexual rights cannot be allowed to suppress all disagreement or disapproval, and “coerce silence”.’

The couple in the High Court test case, Eunice and Owen Johns, said Derby City Council’s fostering panel rejected them as carers because they would never tell children a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable. Mrs Johns said: ‘The council said: “Do you know, you would have to tell them that it’s OK to be homosexual?” ‘But I said I couldn’t do that because my Christian beliefs won’t let me. Morally, I couldn’t do that. Spiritually I couldn’t do that.’

The Pentecostal Christian couple from Derby, who have fostered almost 20 children, are not homophobic, according to the Christian Legal Centre, which has taken up their case. But they are against sex before marriage and do not recognise as marriage civil partnerships between gay couples.

Their beliefs are at odds with Derby City Council’s equality policy, which was drawn up under the terms of the Sexual Orientation Act brought in by Labour.

The Christian Legal Centre, which campaigns for religious freedoms, said in a statement: ‘The case will decide whether the Johns will be able to foster without compromising their beliefs. ‘The implications are huge. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of Christian foster carers and adoptive parents hangs in the balance. ‘It may not be long before local authorities decide that Christians cannot look after some of the most vulnerable children in our society, simply because they disapprove of homosexuality.’

However Ben Summerskill, chief executive of gay rights charity Stonewall, said: ‘Too often in fostering cases nowadays it’s forgotten that it is the interests of a child, and not the prejudices of a parent, that matter. ‘Many Christian parents of gay children will be shocked at Mr and Mrs Johns’s views, which are more redolent of the 19th century than the 21st.’

The case is due to be heard in the High Court sitting at Nottingham Crown Court.

SOURCE





British fox hunting ban set to stay as repeal campaign 'falls off political agenda'



A ban on hunting with dogs is likely to remain despite the change in Government because worries about the nation’s finances have forced the issue off the political agenda, campaigners admitted. The impact of the economic downturn has meant attempts to change the controversial law have become a low priority, the Countryside Alliance acknowledged.

As the traditional start of the season gets under way today, the Alliance conceded it was keeping a low profile because it was foolhardy to make hunting a priority issue when country was just recovering from a recession. Officials admitted that for many living in the country, the issue was “not at the top of the agenda” as many families struggled financially.

Earlier this month, the new head of the Countryside Alliance Alice Barnard, 33, told the Daily Telegraph that David Cameron needed to “right a great wrong” by overturning the ban on hunting with dogs.

But within Tory ranks, traditionally seen as pro-hunting, dissent to overturn the ban, introduced under the Hunting Act 2004, appears to be growing. On Sunday it emerged that only a minority of MPs – 253 out of 650 – are committed to repealing the Act with at least 22 Conservative MPs are among more than 300 who would vote against repealing the law.

Opponents of hunting claim that less than one in five people would support a repeal of the ban. A YouGov poll for the League Against Cruel Sports (Lacs) found that 37 per cent believe the ban is an infringement of civil liberties while 17 per cent want to see the hunting ban properly enforced.

The Alliance contested the findings but a spokeswoman admitted that negotiations for a change in the law were now being undertaken more “behind the scenes”. “At the moment certainly with the economic situation we are facing, the countryside is more concerned about having a job and ensuring they have enough money to put fuel in their machinery than how we kill a fox,” she said.

“The priorities at the moment have changed and we understand we are not top of the pile in terms of those priorities at the moment. “But we are still actively undertaking discussion with people as to why this is a bad law and we are doing that more behind the scenes.”

She added: “Maybe if Labour had not spent 700 hours talking about this law then the economy might not be in this state in the first place.”

Douglas Batchelor, the chief executive of Lacs, claimed that attempts to reverse the ban were a "pipe dream".

SOURCE




Egyptian Christians in Danger as Islam Threat Grows

Egyptian Muslim mobs are seething against the country's Christians following a Al-Jazeera television report that the Christians were aligned with Israel and stockpiling weapons in preparation for attacking the Muslims.

Fears for the safety of the Christians are growing after a series of violent threats and mass demonstrations against them, according to the Barnabas Fund – a Christian advocacy and charitable organization based in Britain.

Muslim rage was ignited last month when Al-Jazeera aired the accusations against the Christians . In addition, the Barnabas Fund reported, the anger is being fueled by rumors circulated by Islamist leaders that Christians are kidnapping and torturing women who had converted to Islam.

At least ten mass Muslim demonstrations by crowds numbering in the thousands have taken place against Christians this month. A previously unknown group called “Front of Islamic Egypt” vowed that the Christians would experience a “bloodbath.”

There are reports that Egyptian authorities are behind the demonstrations, which serve them for political reasons ahead of next month’s national election for the lower house of Parliament and the 2011 election for the country's presidency. Christian human rights activists said that the authorities may be trying to channel the country's growing social discontent into anti-Christian sentiment.

Egypt has the largest Christian population of any Muslim nation in the Arab world, estimated at six to ten million.

In a separate affair, Egypt's Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs compelled a senior church leader to apologize publicly after another church leader questioned a verse in the Qur’an that accuses Christians of being “infidels.”

SOURCE





Australia: NSW to review weak sentencing of criminals

SUSPENDED sentences could be scrapped by the State Government because of concerns courts allow too many serious offenders to escape jail. Attorney-General John Hatzistergos has ordered a review of suspended sentences after the number handed out by judges and magistrates tripled over the past decade.

More than 6400 criminals convicted of assault, robbery and drug dealing last year received suspended sentences, in which a jail term is deferred on the condition there is no re-offending. The Government is looking to follow the lead of Victoria where the sentencing option is being abolished for all but the most serious of crimes.

The review will be carried out by the NSW Sentencing Council. It will be headed by council chair Jerrold Cripps, QC with advice from Justice James Wood, Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, NSW Corrective Services Commissioner Ron Woodham and police Assistant Commissioner David Hudson.Mr Hatzistergos said suspended sentences were designed to denote the seriousness of the offence while giving offenders the chance to rehabilitate in the community.

"This review will determine whether suspended sentences are meeting these objectives," he said. "It will also examine the use of suspended sentences for offenders who would have otherwise been given a bond.

"Importantly, it will consider the views of victims of crime, for whom a suspended sentence can be a confusing outcome when they are expecting the offender to go to jail."Suspended sentences can be issued by the courts to people convicted of crimes that carry sentences of up to two years.

But evidence shows that instead of being issued as an alternative to jail, they are being handed down in place of periodic detention and community services.

Figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) show 5983 suspended sentences were handed down in the lower courts last year and 489 in the higher courts. Eleven people convicted of manslaughter and driving causing death were given suspended sentences. They were also handed down to 113 people convicted of sexual assault, eight who were involved in kidnapping, 334 for burglary, 301 for importing or exporting drugs and 1644 for traffic offences.

In about half the cases, offenders walked free from court without supervision orders.

Suspended sentences were scrapped in the mid-1970s but reintroduced under Bob Carr in 2000. Critics of the sentencing option claim suspended sentences were designed for "middle-class offenders" as the conditions simply required those being handed them to obey the law, as required by the rest of the community.

Victims of Crime Assistance League vice-president Howard Brown said suspended sentences had been handed out inconsistently by the courts and should not be given to perpetrators of violent crime. "There is a place for them, but they've been given inconsistently," Mr Brown said.

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 or 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