The primary version of "Political Correctness Watch" is HERE The Blogroll; John Ray's Home Page; Email John Ray here. Other mirror sites: Greenie Watch, Dissecting Leftism, Education Watch, Gun Watch, Socialized Medicine, Recipes, Australian Politics, Tongue Tied, Immigration Watch, Eye on Britain and Food & Health Skeptic. For a list of backups viewable in China, see here. (Click "Refresh" on your browser if background colour is missing). See here or here for the archives of this site.


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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29 February, 2012

Black British Leftist caught lying to her party

But they still love her. They prefer myth to reality. Rather like the American Left's belief in forged documents being "fake but accurate"

It was among the most emotional speeches at last year’s Labour Party Conference. A young anti-crime campaigner, Narraser Gordon, was given a standing ovation from MPs including Tessa Jowell and Yvette Cooper when she movingly told how eight members of her family had been murdered.

But now it has emerged that most of the ‘victims’ the campaigner claimed had died are in fact alive and well.

After Miss Gordon was forced to admit using ‘misleading’ words in her speech, Labour officials were criticised for not checking her story before she was presented to the conference last September.

The 24-year-old, a member of the Bristol West Labour Party, took to the stage in Liverpool to address the party faithful and accused the Coalition Government of carrying out PR stunts rather than tackling the important issues.

She told the audience last September: ‘I am here to talk about why our young people are dying before they can see the age of 21. ‘We are here to challenge young people in asking the important question: Why join a gang, use a gun, or use a knife?’

She continued: ‘This is an issue that is causing a huge problem across the UK, including London, Liverpool, Nottingham, Birmingham and in my own area Bristol – with eight of my family members being murdered there. I am not a celebrity, I am simply a young person who has had enough of seeing family members, friends and other lives being taken before they can succeed in life.’

In a subsequent newspaper interview, Miss Gordon, of Easton, Bristol, gave two examples of genuine victims to whom she had links. One, Leon Plummer, who was stabbed to death in the city in 2002, was her cousin, although the pair had never met. She said another, 17-year-old Shevon Wilson, who was killed in September 2009, was a friend of hers.

But a BBC current affairs team making a documentary about Miss Gordon’s work began investigating her claims to have lost eight members of her family to knife and gun crime, and say it emerged that most of the people she claimed had been murdered were actually alive. They claim she was also found communicating on Facebook with some of the people she had insisted were dead.

When questioned by the BBC, Miss Gordon admitted that the majority of the people she told them about had not been murdered. Yesterday she said she ‘may have used words which could be seen as misleading’ and expressed ‘regret’.

She told the regional Inside Out programme, broadcast last night on BBC One: ‘I have lost three family members and five very close friends who I consider as family. ‘I realise I may have used words which could be seen as misleading and I do regret this.’

She then bizarrely claimed that she had changed the names in her story to shield the families of the ‘real’ victims, explaining: ‘I do admit that the names originally given to [the BBC] were false. This was done to protect the families of my friends that I have lost.

‘But I was not corresponding with anyone on Facebook, I rarely talk to people on Facebook.’ Miss Gordon, who met Labour leader Ed Miliband when he came to Bristol after last summer’s riots, stood for the party during the 2011 local council elections.

She was said to be in London yesterday and is currently working on a campaign calling for more funding for community activists.

Last night Phil Gaskin, regional director of Labour South West, said: ‘She has not been suspended and we will not be making any further comment on the matter.’

The ‘star’ of the same Labour party conference at which Miss Gordon spoke last year was 16-year-old Rory Weal. The schoolboy was feted as a ‘hero’ after his impassioned speech telling how the welfare state saved his family from ruin.

But the Daily Mail revealed that he was actually the privileged son of a millionaire property developer, and attended private school until his father’s business went bust.

SOURCE






More than one in 10 rape allegations is being dismissed by British police

Just to secure a higher conviction rate and meet their famous bureaucratic "targets"

The Criminal Justice Joint Inspection study claims that in some cases, officers are wrongly recording that “no crime” had been committed. It warns that target cultures have put forces under pressure to keep recorded crime to a “minimum”

The report states that the “performance management regime of the past” overvalued what could be measured, with forces asked to concentrate on producing figures on the proportion of rape allegations solved.

It is suggested that this could lead to genuine reports of rape being written off as if they had never occurred.

The study says police should only end an investigation with a “no crime” classification, removing the allegation from records, if they receive additional evidence that it did not take place. “If there is any doubt, the crime remains recorded.”

The report by HM Inspectorates of Constabulary and the Crown Prosecution Service states: “If crimes of rape are incorrectly removed from crime figures, services to victims are reduced and offenders left at liberty to commit further offences.”

But Home Office figures show 2,131 rape claims were “no crimed” in 2010-11 – nearly 12 per cent of the total. In Kent the figure was 30 per cent. By contrast, just 3 per cent of GBH [Grievous Bodily Harm] allegations were later re-classified as no crimes.

The inspectors looked at about 100 records of various crimes in each police force and found that 11 per cent of them had been “incorrectly ‘no crimed’”.

The ACPO lead for rape and serious sexual offences, Chief Constable Dave Whatton, said: “This review rightly acknowledges improvements in recent years to the way victims of rape are treated. Improvements in specialist training of officers, introduction of early evidence kits, better access to sexual assault referral centres and significantly improved crime recording practices have assisted the policing response. But we know that there is no room for complacency.”

Yvette Cooper, Shadow Home Secretary, said: “The Joint Inspectorate’s report shows how important DNA evidence and forensics are for solving rape cases, and how they should be used more to improve conviction rates.

“Why then is the government going in the opposite direction, taking 17,000 rape suspects off the DNA database and closing the forensic science service with no proper service in its place?

SOURCE





The attack on FreeFaith.com shows the intolerance of religion's enemies

By Cristina Odone

When I was 30, and the new editor of the Catholic Herald, I went to interview the – now late – Auberon Waugh at his club, The Academy. In the course of a long dinner and many many glasses of excellent wine, I told him I didn't think I'd stay in journalism for long: I wanted a nice easy life, and I'd probably drift into writing novels sooner rather than later. Bron didn't believe a word of it, needless to say. He assured me that I could have a very easy life as a hackette (those were the days when the industry was still thriving): "Just don't stick your head above the parapet."

Easier said than done. Over the years, I've grown more, not less, passionate about certain issues; keeping schtum has grown impossible. Unfortunately for me, the positions I hold on a whole gamut of issues (abortion, gay marriage, faith schools) run counter to the liberal establishment. This has pitted me against the likes of Polly Toynbee (you can listen to our ding-dong on the Today programme), Richard Dawkins, the National Secularist Society and – most viciously of all – Johann Hari.

I've recovered from having my Wikipedia entry manipulated by Hari (still no apologies from the discredited hack) but now I face a new foe: a sophisticated hacker who has disabled FreeFaith.com, my website promoting (irony of ironies) tolerance.

Like so many Britons, I have taken tolerance for granted. It's everywhere, after all: in the legislation establishing gay rights and in the laws protecting faith schools.

Suddenly, though, a BA employee was banned from wearing a cross to work; Catholic adoption agencies forced to accept gay adopting couples; an elderly couple banned from fostering because of their views on homosexuality. Tolerance was suddenly no longer a given, but a battle: atheists wanted to impose their views on the rest, and persecute anyone who disagreed.

The tone of the debate made me uneasy: with every intervention, the anti-religious, and in particular anti-Christian, tone grew more strident. I decided I couldn't sit by as a cherished principle was trampled; yes, I could write about the new intolerance in this blog, and in the paper; but I wanted to dedicate more time and energy to the defence of faith.

I approached Tim Montgomerie, founder of ConservativeHome, last summer with the idea of setting up a website to defend tolerance of and between the faiths. Tim, the most inventive and generous of intellectual entrepreneurs, immediately assured me of his support, organised meetings with Paul Goodman (editor of ConHome) and Paul Waugh (editor of PoliticsHome), and taught me the basics of website design. He aso came up with a name for the site.

In the website I covered the obvious issues – anti-semitic attacks in Britain, anti-Christian court cases, the plight of Egyptian Copts, the martyrdom of Christians accused of apostasy in the Middle East. It generated some traffic. Most comments were viciously anti-religion, but I didn't mind: at least someone was reading it.

Now, they can't. Last Friday, a sophisticated hacker embedded a malicious code in my FTP access, and disabled FreeFaith.com. I'm not pointing any fingers, but a review of the Tweets my appearance on Question Time prompted, reveals that my faith earns me some vicious enemies. The programme did not raise any religious questions; nor was I introduced as a Christian or even as the ex-editor of the Catholic Herald; yet the tweets are all about my being a "theocrat" and a "Christian apologist". As such, I must be condemned – and silenced. So much for tolerance. So much for an easy life.

SOURCE




Santorum rejects the separation of church and state

It isn't in the constitution so he is entitled to -- but it is vastly "incorrect" in Leftist circles

Rick Santorum, the ultraconservative presidential hopeful, has intensified his Christian rhetoric as he rejected John F Kennedy's promise to maintain an absolute separation between church and state as an idea that "makes me throw up."

The appeal to the party's Christian base – dismissing the famous 1960 campaign speech by President Kennedy to keep his Catholic faith out of politics – represents a further lurch to the right in the acrimonious battle to find a Republican candidate to face Barack Obama in November.

"I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," said Mr Santorum, an evangelical Catholic who would become the second Catholic to win the White House after President Kennedy.

"The first substantive line in the [Kennedy] speech says, 'I believe in America where the separation of church and state is absolute," the former Pennsylvania senator told ABC News, "You bet that makes you throw up."

His remarks came on the eve of Tuesday's crucial primary in Michigan where Mr Santorum is hoping to upset the Mitt Romney, the long-time front-runner, who finds himself is scrambling to win his 'home state'.

An aggregate of polls by Real Clear Politics has put Mr Romney two points clear in the Rust Belt state, which several senior Republican figures have said the former management consultant must win if his claim to be the man only who can beat Mr Obama is to retain credibility.

Mr Santorum has surged to the front of the Republican nomination contest in recent weeks with a message of social conservatism, attacking Obama health care reforms that obligated religious-affiliated hospitals and schools to provide contraception to employees.

However in a year where the economy is uppermost in most American's minds, it remains far from clear that the appeal to conservative social issues will prove a winning formula for Mr Santorum.

"One place Santorum may have hurt himself in the last week is an overemphasis on social issues," said Public Policy Polling (PPP), observing that 69 per cent of Michigan voters were concerned with economic issues this year compared to only 17 per cent who picked social issues.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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28 February, 2012

Show some backbone! Former top retailer tells British firms to defy militants on work experience scheme

The former boss of Marks & Spencer yesterday told firms to show some ‘backbone’ and stand up to anti-capitalist protests over the Government’s work experience scheme.

Sir Stuart Rose, who started out shelf-stacking and sweeping floors 40 years ago, said it was ‘baffling’ that anyone would complain about unemployed youngsters being given similar opportunities.

He said parents should tell their jobless children to ‘get stuck in’ and snap up any opportunity at a time of high youth unemployment.

Ministers are preparing for talks this week with some of the firms taking part in the scheme, in which youngsters on jobless benefits are invited to volunteer for work experience placements of up to eight weeks.

So far, more than 34,000 under-24s have taken part in the programme and half have come off benefits as a result.

But the scheme has been thrown into turmoil by protests led by a campaign group called Right to Work, which ministers say is nothing more than a front organisation for the hard-Left Socialist Workers Party. The SWP advocates the overthrow of capitalism via a Marxist revolution.

Though only a tiny cabal of extremists appear to be leading the campaign to brand work experience ‘slave labour’, several companies have been sufficiently rattled to announce that they are reviewing their involvement. Employment minister Chris Grayling insists that no firm signed up at national level has withdrawn, although some have done so locally. Tesco, Waterstones, TK Maxx, Poundland, Oxfam and Burger King are among those which have expressed concern.

Sir Stuart, who restored the fortunes of Marks & Spencer, urged firms not to bow to the campaign to ‘sabotage’ the scheme.

‘We’ve got the economy which has been through terrible times, we’ve got a need to get people’s confidence going, get the country back to work. We’re offering young people the opportunity to really understand what the workplace is about and it appears there is some plan to sabotage this, which I think is nonsense,’ he told Sky News’s Murnaghan programme.

‘It’s about getting people into the routine of working, making sure they are up in the morning, making sure they’re presentable, make sure they arrive on time, make sure they know what it’s like to have a properly constructed work programme, and shelf stacking is just a part of it.

‘When I started off in my retail career as a management trainee in Marks & Spencer’s 40 years ago, I was put to shelf stacking and indeed to sweeping out the warehouse for a day.

‘If you are drawing unemployment benefit and you are looking to get into the workplace and somebody says to you, “We’ll give you some experience” and you have got a week apparently to withdraw from it if it doesn’t suit you, why would you not do it? ‘If I was the parent of one of these people I’d say, “Go on to it, lad, get in there, get stuck in”.

‘So I find it quite baffling and I think it’s very, very sad, with I think it’s 20-odd per cent of unemployment around the age of 18, that kids are being led to believe that big business is exploiting them, which is nonsense.’ Sir Stuart said firms were apparently being ‘intimidated’ by the campaign against the scheme, adding: ‘One or two have shown a little less than backbone, if I might say so.

‘I think you have got to stick with it. If there are one or two issues of administration in the process that need sorting out, then let’s sort it out, but it seems to me quite straightforward.

‘You can come in, you can get work experience and if you like it you can stay here and possibly get offered a job; if you don’t like it after the first week you can go away. I don’t get it, what’s the problem?’

Mr Grayling told the Daily Mail he would deliver a similar message to company bosses when he meets them on Wednesday. ‘I hope now that everyone involved in the scheme realises we have been targeted by a small group of extremists who created a noise utterly disproportionate to their number, they agree it would be a disaster for young people if we allowed that campaign to prevail,’ he said.

He is prepared to discuss firms’ concerns about sanctions attached to the scheme which mean that benefits can be withdrawn if youngsters who have not opted to leave a placement after a week fail to turn up without good reason or are rude and unco-operative. But he added: ‘I don’t think any employer wants to be in a position where somebody behaves badly and faces no consequences.’

Tory MP Harriett Baldwin said: ‘I’m disappointed that some leading employers appeared frightened at the first whiff of grapeshot from a bunch of socialist campaigners. I hope they realise what an important role they have to play in giving youngsters a chance.’

SOURCE






Britain's angry generation: Lack of parental discipline is blamed for aggressive and anti-social children

Parents who fail to discipline their offspring properly are creating a generation of angry children who lash out in the classroom, a study has found.

Pupils were twice as likely to be aggressive and disruptive if they had parents who were violent, critical or inconsistent in what they allowed them to get away with at home.

In contrast, children tended to be better behaved if their parents combined warmth with clear and consistent rules and boundaries.

For the study, nearly 300 families with children aged four to seven were assessed for both the children’s behaviour and their parents’ discipline techniques.

The researchers, led by Professor Stephen Scott, director of the National Academy for Parenting Research, said: ‘A negative parenting style, characterised by harsh, inconsistent discipline, was clearly associated with more severe child anti-social behaviour.

‘Parents who used negative discipline had twice the rate of children with severe behaviour problems compared to the other parents.’

The finding follows claims by experts that some middle-class parents lavish material possessions on their children but are distant and barely involved in their upbringing.

Poor supervision of children’s activities and mothers suffering depression were also linked to bad behaviour.

The researchers said they were unable to rule out the argument that ‘irritating’ children were themselves to blame for ‘evoking harsher parenting’.

But they added: ‘A whole range of studies has shown the causal effect is there too, and that harsh parenting trains children to become anti-social.’ These children were at risk of underperforming at school and even turning to crime and drug or alcohol abuse.

The researchers claimed that their study, which was funded by the Government, reinforced the benefits of parenting lessons to teach mothers and fathers across all sections of society how to discipline their children.

Ministers are already preparing a two-year trial of parenting classes in three areas as part of a £5million experiment which will deal with issues such as discipline, communication and managing conflict. From the summer, the lessons will be introduced for about 50,000 families in Middlesbrough, High Peak in Derbyshire, and Camden in North London.

But ministers hope that if the scheme proves successful they will eventually extend it across the country and make the classes available to all parents.

The research team reported that mothers who were less educated and had lower incomes were more likely to resort to negative parenting. However they admitted the link was ‘weak’ and urged against viewing the problem as being confined to these types of families.

The report added: ‘It underlines the fact that there is the opportunity to improve children’s life chances through directly intervening with programmes that are effective in changing parenting styles.’

Child literacy expert Sue Palmer blamed parents relying on ‘electronic babysitters’, and claimed in her book Toxic Childhood that many children starting school had led a ‘very solitary, sedentary, screen-based existence’. She added: ‘Many children now watch bedtime TV rather than sharing a bedtime story, songs and chat with parents. This is a serious erosion of important family time.’

SOURCE




The Left Declares Victory

“The culture wars are over, and the Republicans lost.” So says liberal columnist John Alter.

He’s not the only one declaring victory. Over at the Daily Beast, one columnist judged the Republican Party as “flat-out nuts” for taking on social issues and mocked Rick Santorum as “a refugee from the 16th century.” And Andrew Sullivan takes things a step further, saying that “Republicans are losing the pop culture wars” played out in music, movies, and art. And Salon, the predictable liberal voice, shrills about “the Right’s lost causes” and claims victory.

So what have they “won?”

Let’s look at two examples of the ‘achievements’ wrought by liberalism:

1). Fractured families and a soaring out-of-wedlock birth rate: The liberals’ mantra that ‘there’s nothing inherently better about a married mom and dad raising their own kids’ has produced dismal results. According to new data from Child Trends, and reported in the New York Times, 53% of children born to women under 30 (the age group that is responsible for two-thirds of the birth rate) are now born out of wedlock. And, tragically, the leading cause of poverty in America is single motherhood.

Other predictable results for children born outside the stable structure of marriage? Educational deficits, greater risks of emotional, psychological, and behavioral problems. And the problems are not evenly distributed: minorities and women with only a high-school education reflect startlingly high rates of unmarried births: 73% of African-Americans are born to single mothers and only 43% of women whose highest level of education is high school will give birth within marriage. Those least equipped to overcome the long odds of unmarried parenthood are the most likely to shun marriage. In some schools and neighborhoods, the next generation of children will not only grow up without the stability of marriage, they also will encounter fewexamples of intact, married families. It’s a situation that’s tragic for the children, destabilizes society, and swells the ranks of folks dependent on government handouts for a steady monthly income.

That’s victory?

2). Meaningless sex and soaring STD rates: The left’s triumph on the sexual front is empty indeed. Columnist Michael Lind boasts that, “Now practically anything can be viewed on PCs and phones, and most award-winning dramas feature profanity and softcore sex scenes that would have provoked nationwide protests a few decades ago. This is a triumph for libertinism, if not liberalism.”

As a result, children have little protection from adult sexual indulgence. The fruit? Children exposed to sexual content are more likely to have sex earlier, generating a spiral of negative consequences, even apart form pregnancy and abortion. Forty percent of sexually active teenage girls have a sexually transmitted disease. Among minorities, those rates are even higher--and as STD rates skyrocket, cures are becoming less likely. Gonorrhea, for example, is fast becoming resistant to the antibiotics currently used to treat it. The sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV)---which has already been identified as the cause of most cases of cervical cancer, now appears to be causing an increase in oral and throat cancer as well. Add to all this the tragedy of young human hearts who experience sex merely as animalistic gratification; they never learn the tender connection between sex, commitment, and self-giving love.

This is what victory looks like? And I haven’t even mentioned President Obama’s record-breaking 3.8 trillion dollar budget or his disastrous “lead from behind” foreign policy.

SOURCE






Government Anonymous (As in Alcoholics Anonymous)

Mark: "My name is Mark. I'm here at Government Anonymous because I'm addicted...addicted to government aid."

Leader: "Welcome Mark. What made you finally decide to come tonight?"

Mark: "I've always had a job. I've always earned my own way. When I lost my job two years ago, I thought I could get a job right away. I'd always done that. I updated my resume, used all my contacts, took interview after interview. I couldn't get a job."

Leader: "You're not alone. It's been difficult for many in this economy."

Mark: "I applied for unemployment. They suggested that I apply for food stamps. With their help, I was applying for any benefit I could get. Pretty soon I was spending more time applying for and keeping my aid than finding a way off. I was going on the minimal interviews required. I was just going through the motions. Government aid is designed to help, but it became a trap to me, an all-too-comfortable crutch. Even worse, I stopped believing that I could make my own way."

Leader: "Go on."

Mark: "I know that everyone is going to have times that they need help. I just thought it was my turn. After all, I had convinced myself that the money was there. Then when President Obama said that the rich--those top 1% he's always talking about--needed to step up and pay more, I wanted to believe that was fair. I didn't want to give up my benefits, but I didn't realize how much the rich already paid."

Leader: "What do you mean?"

Mark: "When I found out that the top 1% of American income earners already pay 38% of the federal income taxes and nearly 50% of Americans pay no income tax, I couldn't believe it. While I was being encouraged to game the system, I felt like I was justifying stealing from my neighbor. That's far from fair. And it's more than the poor who are getting these benefits. It's out of control."

Leader: "But why are you here tonight?"

Mark: "It's not just wrong to justify taking more from my neighbor; the government is broke. I didn't realize how much until I saw John Stossel explain it in a way I could understand. He didn't talk about trillions in debt. Who can understand how big a trillion dollars really is?. Stossel put the problem in terms of an average American family. If America was a family, its average income would be $24,700--its annual spending $37,900. This year, that family would have added $13,300 in new credit card debt. But that is nothing compared to the existing credit card balance--$153,500. Who could sleep with a debt like that? And who would be paying for this? Our kids will! We are taking now, and they will get the bill later."

Leader: "Is that why you’re here?"

Mark: "I'm tired of being dependent. I'm tired of taking instead of contributing. I'm tired of politicians over promising and not being responsible for my son's future. The president says he's ready to cut spending, but the deficit just keeps growing."

Leader: "I can see why this might impact your vote, but I'm not sure why it would get you here to Government Anonymous tonight?"

Mark: "I'm addicted, and I'm ashamed of being one of the takers. I'm ashamed of being dependent on government when I want to work. I want to be a better influence on my son. I want him to have a dream...the dreams I once had. Dreams I still want to have."

Leader: "Your son?"

Mark: "Yesterday, my son asked me something I didn't want to answer."

Leader: "What did he ask?"

Mark: "He asked me, 'When I grow up, will I have food stamps, too?' I wanted to cry. That's not the dream I want for him. That's not the dream I want. I want off."

Leader: "That's what we were waiting to hear."

SOURCE

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

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

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

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27 February, 2012

The picture that shames Britain: As a man's body floats in three and a half feet of water, 25 emergency workers stand and watch because they aren't 'trained' to go in water



The busy scene on the banks of the lake appears to show our emergency services at their dynamic best. An air ambulance stands by as two specialist officers in yellow ‘immersion suits’ deliver a man who has collapsed into the water to paramedics at the water’s edge.

They attempt to resuscitate him inside an inflatable tent. A queue of ambulances and fire engines stands by ready and waiting near a small crowd of shocked onlookers. Yet the story behind this picture is anything but impressive.

This was Walpole Park in Gosport, Hampshire, on an overcast lunchtime last March when no fewer than 25 members of the emergency services, including a press officer, descended on a 3½ft-deep model boating lake minutes after Simon Burgess, 41, fell into the water when he suffered a seizure. But as an inquest heard last week, he lay floating face-down for more than half an hour while firemen, police and paramedics watched and did nothing.

The reason? Even though they could all swim, the first fire crew to arrive hadn’t been ‘trained’ to enter water higher than ankle-deep. Instead they waited for ‘specialists’ to arrive to retrieve his body. They had decided Mr Burgess must surely be dead because he had been in the water for ten minutes. When a policeman decided to go in anyway, he was ordered not to. A paramedic was also told not to enter the water because he didn’t have the right ‘protective’ clothing and might be in breach of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.

The tragic incident made headlines around the world, held up as a shocking example of ludicrously risk-averse Britain. And it prompted a coroner to demand that fire, police and ambulance services improve training to prevent a repeat.

Following the inquest, a Mail on Sunday investigation has now discovered that:

* The ‘ankle-deep’ rule was meant for fast-flowing water and is taken from guidelines drawn up to deal with floods.

* Other rescue agencies believe people can survive submerged for much longer than ten minutes – some will still try resuscitation at 90 minutes.

* The incident happened despite a previous reassurance from the Health and Safety Executive that firefighters would not face prosecution if they performed acts of heroism that break rules.

* Mr Burgess could have been reached within two minutes of emergency crews arriving at the scene – as proved by our reporter who went into the lake and waded 25ft to the spot where his body had been floating.

Mr Burgess had been feeding swans from a plastic bag that blew into the lake. He went in to retrieve it and while he was in the water he had a fit and fell unconscious. Last week, Coroner David Horsley ruled his death was an accident on the balance of probabilities, but said there was a chance, ‘albeit a slim one’, he could have been saved had the emergency services intervened sooner.

Fire station watch manager Tony Nicholls arrived at the scene within five minutes but refused to try to rescue Mr Burgess because, he told the inquest, his crew’s ‘Level 1’ training only allowed them to go in the water up to their ankles.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue said all its firefighters were trained to Level 1, which includes ‘general water safety awareness and basic land-based rescue techniques’. To comply with the guidelines, they had to wait for a specialist water rescue team to arrive. Mr Nicholls said these officers were ‘Level 2-trained’, meaning they could ‘go in chest- high’. Only those who had completed the Level 3 course would be allowed to swim, however.

Although it wasn’t made clear at the inquest, the rule about not entering water more than ankle-high is based entirely on guidelines drawn up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for tackling flood emergencies.

A Hampshire Fire and Rescue spokesman admitted the service knew the guideline was originally intended as advice to be followed at flood incidents – but the service insists firefighters apply it in ALL water-related incidents.

A Defra spokeswoman explained: ‘Our guidance is only ever to be used by the emergency services in response to a flood. This is because floods by their very nature are highly unpredictable, unlike existing bodies of water. Our guidance should never be used in any other instance.’

However, the Government’s Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser, Sir Ken Knight, has included the Defra training recommendations in an ‘operational guidance’ document on water safety.

One of the police officers at the scene, PC Tony Jones, told the inquest that he volunteered to go in, but was ‘strongly advised’ not to by Mr Nicholls. The PC also told the inquest that Mr Nicholls refused to let him borrow his lifejacket.

Then PC Jones was told by his control room that ‘under no circumstances’ should he attempt a rescue. Asked to explain that decision, Hampshire Police said yesterday: ‘The fire service were already there and they were recovering a body.’ The decision to downgrade the incident from a rescue to a ‘body retrieval situation’ reflected the confusion over submersion victims.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution said the only instances in which its rescuers would not attempt resuscitation would be if a body was already decomposing, or had been submerged for more than 90 minutes. Rescuers in the US believe a person can be revived after being immersed in water for up to an hour.

Professor Mike Tipton, of Ports–mouth University, concluded in a report for the emergency services last year that if ‘water temperature is warmer than 6C [42F], survival is extremely unlikely if submerged longer than 30 minutes’.

Chances of survival are much higher if water temperature is lower than this, but not if the body is submerged for more than 90 minutes.

He produced examples of people who had been saved after submersion of between 20 and 60 minutes.

Despite the safety rules, those at the scene could have entered the water under Health and Safety Executive guidelines that exempt 999 workers from prosecution if they perform acts of heroism. This follows Lord Young’s report, Common Sense, Common Safety, which called for an end to ‘senseless’ rules and regulations.

Last night, Fire Minister Bob Neill said: ‘Health and safety rules should be there to save lives, not put them at risk.’ He added that the Government would review existing guidance and take into account lessons learnt from recent incidents.

SOURCE






The new tyranny of temperance

Some government officials will only be happy when Britain resembles a giant Alcoholics Anonymous meeting

Whether it’s ‘hidden alcoholics’, middle-class professionals ‘for whom one glass of wine after work is never enough’, or yobbish working-class drinkers causing a nuisance in public, the attempts by government and campaigners to root out and tackle those deemed to be drinking ‘excessively’ have never been more aggressive.

From the prime minister to the media, there’s one thing everyone seems to agree on: Britain’s boozing has reached ‘scandalous’ proportions. ‘This is a national problem, it needs the government really to focus on it’, UK prime minister David Cameron declared last week, referring to what he called the ‘rising tide’ of irresponsible drinking across the country.

But it’s not just loud yobbish drunks going out on the lash and injuring themselves and others and winding up in hospital casualty departments on Friday and Saturday nights that are the problem: it’s also the ‘hidden alcoholics’, the middle-class wine drinkers who sup several glasses of sauvignon blanc on the sofa at night. Tonight on the BBC’s Panorama, former New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell will confess, once again, to having been a secret alcoholic himself, and will highlight the fact that ‘nearly 9,000 people’ die each year from alcohol-related diseases. He will also wheel out an assortment of medical experts who will diagnose a ‘health crisis’ in the country.

But, given we’re all going to die of something, surely we should have the freedom to shorten our lives a little by having pint or two too many if we like? Apparently not. As well as emphasising the ‘anti-social behaviour’ alcohol causes, the government and campaigners alike are quick to point to what the Observer yesterday called ‘the intolerable burden being placed on the health services’. Even by overindulging on the vino by ourselves at home, we are apparently being irresponsible and causing a public nuisance – by potentially contributing to what David Cameron claims could be between £17 billion and £22 billion per year spent on ‘alcohol-related costs’. Campaign group Alcohol Concern has claimed that each taxpayer stumps up £1,000 of tax per year to tackle this problem.

The precise way such figures are arrived at is questionable. It is certainly the case that the amount of revenue brought in through taxation on alcohol covers the NHS bill for alcohol-related issues, with a couple of billion pounds left to spare. And, strikingly, the increase in hype about a drinking ‘epidemic’ in Britain coincides with a significant decline in per capita alcohol consumption. According to the Office of National Statistics, since 2002 there has been a steady drop in the amount of alcohol drunk by people of all ages.

Exactly why and how an increase in excessive drinking coincides with a fall in alcohol consumption is currently a source of confusion. But, regardless, the political and media classes are convinced they know the solution: to drink even less. While welcoming the drop in alcohol consumption as ‘good news’, an Observer editorial declared ‘a strong strategy is still urgently required if we are all to learn when put a stop on the bottle’.

Many have already given up on the idea that we can ‘learn’ when enough booze is enough, however. Increasingly, drinking more than the government’s recommended units of alcohol each week – which, notoriously, was a figure plucked out of thin air – is being portrayed as the result of addictive behaviour. As Alcoholics Anonymous famously put it, we are ‘powerless over alcohol’. Our addiction has apparently impaired our rationality. Typifying this trend was Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe, who last week spoke of his decision to go tee-total after discovering to his youthful horror that he would often drink alcohol on social occasions. This was diagnosed as alcohol addiction, best tackled by abstaining completely.

Later this year, the coalition government is set to unveil an alcohol strategy which will outline ways to curb people’s drinking habits. While David Cameron has argued that ‘this isn’t just about more rules and regulation’, it is evident a barrage of new rules and regulations are coming our way. He has expressed a personal desire to introduce minimum pricing of alcohol, to have police patrolling hospitals and to introduce US-style ‘drunk tanks’ where people deemed to be too drunk are incarcerated until they’ve sobered up. Some campaigners go even further, with one suggesting that drinking licences should be given to everyone on their eighteenth birthday. These would then be revoked should a certain number of points be obtained through irresponsible drinking.

While such a proposal seems not to be on the cards just yet, the fact that campaigners feel sufficiently emboldened to make such illiberal proposals shows the extent to which the new temperance movement is gaining force in Britain today. Alcohol is set to get more expensive; anyone getting drunk in public could be banged up; and those choosing to drink at home will be increasingly stigmatised as alcohol addicts. To many anti-alcohol campaigners, this is simply a small step in the desired direction: to get the whole country to adopt an Alcoholics Anonymous mindset.

SOURCE





OIC “Workshops” Speech Crime

Stealth and violent jihadists have discovered the alchemist’s secret of turning gold into lead – that is, of turning freedom of speech into a risky and unwanted liability. It’s really quite simple, obvious for all to see. The formula is similar to the “good cop/bad cop” routine of detective movies.

Start with a cartoon of Mohammad, or a dozen of them, or with public remarks that directly or indirectly hold Islam and Muslims responsible for terrorism, or publish a scholarly, cogent paper on the totalitarian and brutal natures of Islam, or give a mooning “arse-lifter” on a public street the literal boot in a heart-felt moment of disrespect for a manqué bowing to meteorite and who’s in your way.

Of course, the remarks, the charges, the papers, and even the disrespect are responses to about thirty years of irrational Muslim behavior.

Any one of those actions will precipitate riots, calls for death to apostates and insulters of Islam, noisy, ugly demonstrations, chants of “Islam will dominate,” the waving of black jihad flags, and general pandemonium across the globe. And a few dozen or few score deaths at the hands of the insulted. All incidents starring Muslims. Not to mention the self-censorship of newspapers and book publishers, who abandon the issue for safety reasons; who, to borrow a line from “Seinfeld,” draw their heads into their shells like frightened turtles.

When the fires have been put out and the streets cleared of debris and the signs stashed away until the next defamation or insult, things will be quiet for a while.

Then will come calls to tone down the anger and the rhetoric – addressed, not to the rioters, murderers, and Muslim clerics – but to those whose words, cartoons, or actions “offended” the congenitally offendable. The calls will be made by those responsible for keeping law and order and establishing policy. In order to maintain civil order and manageable budgets, it is decreed that anyone criticizing Islam or making fun of Islam and Muslims, will be charged with hate speech, or exhibiting disrespect for one of the world’s oldest religions, or some such, in order to prevent more destructive and costly demonstrations. It’s a matter of cause and effect, you see. If Muslim feelings weren’t hurt, if their beliefs weren’t examined or satirized or opened to the cruel sunlight of rational scrutiny, Muslims wouldn’t resort to mayhem, rape, murder, and car-burning.

It’s quite simple. Almost scientific. Just like global warming.

The calls come basically from two sets of liberals: those who are outraged that Islam has been insulted or defamed, because they are so tolerant and non-judgmental and it makes them feel good and virtuous to be so tolerant and non-judgmental; and from those who are intimidated by brute force and ugly chants and irrational behavior of any kind, and they’d just rather people shut up in the name of “community cohesion” so they won’t need to hear or see the brute force and ugly chants of those less “cohesed” than they might want to imagine.

The pattern has been repeated numerous times over the last few decades. It works. It gets results. Why? Because our political and intellectual establishments are governed by egalitarianism, multiculturalism, and moral relativism. That is, by the irrational. And irrational policies benefit only the irrational, and punish the rational. There are two classes of irrationalists: those who are irrational on principle – otherwise known as nihilists – and those whose minds have been enfeebled by egalitarianism, multiculturalism, and moral relativism. Both classes can be identified by their political correctness.

But it takes some shoulder-rubbing and much intensive study to distinguish between the nihilists and the white-tailed deer, between those who want to just shut you up and reduce you to rags, and those who flee at the first sign of a wolf.

Having proven that their mumbo-jumbo works on the cowardly and credulous infidels, the irrationalists are taking their alchemy to a new level: a ban – by hook or by crook, by shame or by sedition, by ostracism or by force – of any and all criticism of Islam and Muslims, by way of the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The OIC is a gang that works within that club of tyrannies, dictatorships, religious régimes, and clueless, compliant, and wimpy “democracies.”

Much more HERE






Must not insult Muslim "honour"

Others would call it a complete lack of honour

Cowering under her living room table with a duvet for comfort, Dr Alison Hewitt prepared to spend a sleepless night in her small Brighton flat.

In one hand, the trainee GP clutched her mobile phone ready to dial 999 at the slightest noise. In the other, she gripped her alarm clock which, she reasoned, would provide a useful source of light in an emergency. Then, uncertain if she would survive the night, she waited.

Alison was convinced that she was about to be visited by her ex-boyfriend Al Amin Dhalla, who had subjected her and her family to a vicious campaign of harassment over several months.

Her terror was heightened knowing that police, who knew all about Dhalla, had freed him on bail after finding him firing a cache of weapons – including a crossbow, air pistol and air rifle – in the Wiltshire countryside. In his car, police had found masking tape, tools and a satnav that was programmed with addresses for Alison and her mother. His claim that he had been carrying out target practice suddenly held chilling significance.

The discovery was terrifying enough to force Alison, 37, to calculate where best to position her makeshift bed if, as she feared, Dhalla turned up with a crossbow.

Last week, Dhalla, 42, a Canadian who worked in the City, was found guilty of nine charges following a four-week trial at Lewes Crown Court, including two counts of harassment, theft, arson with intent to endanger life, criminal damage and possession of an offensive weapon.

Dhalla was described as a narcissistic psychopath whose outwardly mild-mannered personality and stable career was completely at odds with a violent and obsessive streak, which was only revealed after he was spurned by Alison after a year-long romance.

She has endured what she describes as a nightmare so far-fetched and surreal that she still struggles to understand it.

Speaking at her mother's thatched cottage in the pretty hamlet of Aston Abbotts near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, she says: 'I've been in major shock and total disbelief all the way through. I'm still in shock. I've also felt humiliated and mortified that I let these things happen, that my judgment was so bad.

To anyone who met Dhalla, he appeared a gentle and unassuming man with impeccable manners.

Dhalla, from Toronto, told Alison he was 35, had been in the UK for five years and was orphaned when his parents died in a car crash. All would later turn out to be lies. But he maintained the pretence – and confessed his love for Alison within two months.

He demonstrated an odd determination to move in to her flat by bringing a bag of possessions each time he visited, and Alison was flattered. After all, she was busy at work and he seemed happy to look after her.

Alison's suspicions about Dhalla were first aroused when he was introduced to her family at the wedding of Alison's mother Pamela, 66, who married David Gray in June 2010. Alison's father Anthony, a social worker and lecturer, had died 15 years previously.

Alison recalls: 'My gran confided she thought there was something suspicious about Al. She'd asked him about the car crash and decided that he was evasive. She wondered whether he was married or had kids.'

David's job, as a weapons scientist with BME, a subsidiary of global defence giant BAE Systems, required him to notify his employers of any changes to personal circumstances. Since he had recently remarried, he had mentioned his new stepdaughter's boyfriend.

Alison says: 'David's company had carried out some basic screening and some suspicions had been raised. It was vague, but suggested a criminal record. They had also hired this private detective who said Al had lied on his visa to get into the UK. He'd put "doctor in training" for his job.'

The family told Alison to leave Dhalla, saying he was dangerous, and she moved out of her flat and into a Premier Inn for some breathing space. She soon returned – after being pestered by Dhalla's telephone calls to the hotel – but after the inquest in mid-December, Alison finally confronted the relationship.

Then Dhalla's employers received an anonymous letter repeating the claim that he had lied on his work visa, and he resigned rather than face an investigation. Alison believes it was the private investigator who tipped them off, but it gave her the strength to summon her courage.

On Christmas Eve, just before starting a night shift at the hospital, she suggested they should break up. He seemed calm, and said he'd think about it. When Alison came home the following morning, their Christmas decorations, including the Christmas tree, had all gone. 'Al was angry,' she says. 'He said the decorations were in the bin outside, along with a butterfly picture from the wall and my medical degree certificate, which he'd ripped apart. That really upset me.'

On January 8, 2011, David and Alison's brother, Paul, persuaded Dhalla to move out. But Dhalla did not take rejection well.

She says: 'For the first time, I saw his eyes blazing. His pupils were animated and angry, like he was enjoying the argument. It was suddenly really intimidating. I had to promise to see him on Monday to get him to leave. But I spoke to the police and they agreed to come along and arrest him on Monday night.'

Dhalla was arrested on March 28 as he arrived at Alison's flat, on suspicion of harassment and theft of documents. He was given a restraining order, banning him from Sussex and forbidding him from contacting Alison or her family.

But on April 4 a policeman arrived at Alison's work to tell her about the arrest in Wiltshire, and how Dhalla had been shooting at targets in a field. Though his anger had clearly escalated, he was released on bail the next day. Alison says: 'I was really shocked. I had felt relieved that he would be locked up. I just knew he would come and find me. The police put a red alert against my phone number and address.

At 3am, police arrived at Alison's flat to tell her that her mother's home had been set on fire. Fortunately, the damage was limited to the front door and wall and the thatched roof did not catch alight.

At the time, Pamela and David were away on holiday in a cottage on Lundy Island – but the police were concerned enough about their safety to send a helicopter to airlift them to a safe house in Eastbourne, where Alison had also been taken.

By now, red alerts were also in place on Alison's workplaces and Dhalla was seen on CCTV at the Princess Royal hospital at Haywards Heath, West Sussex, where Alison was working at the time in obstetrics. He had posed as a doctor by stealing a stethoscope and had been asking staff about work rotas.

That night, Dhalla tried to set fire to a police station in Wing, a couple of miles from Alison's mother's home. He returned to the hospital at 5am – when Alison should have been working – and was spotted by staff and locked in a toilet until armed police arrived.

In his hired car, police found a loaded crossbow, a large knife, a claw hammer, pliers, bolt cutters, and a doctor's outfit.

Dhalla's trial lasted four weeks. Alison learnt he had rented a flat on a neighbouring street in Brighton in a bid to follow her movements, and police later said that arresting him had prevented three murders. He is due to be sentenced in April.

Alison is still unable to reconcile the apparently gentle man she knew with the armed stalker in the dock. 'I never want to see him again,' she says. 'I feel very sad that this happened, and that people can have such anger and revenge in them that it gets so out of control. I feel sad about the whole thing, rather than angry, but I know I'll recover.'

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. 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 February, 2012

Meet the ‘Mosquebusters’: British Legal Team Out to Stop Islamic Influence in its Tracks

Meet the Mosquebusters — or as they’re officially known, the Law and Freedom Foundation – a group of anti-Islamic vigilantes in Britain with a subtler approach than their peers: Rather than picket Mosque sites, or lead demonstrations of any kind, they sue under Britain’s byzantine legal code to make it illegal for those Mosques to be built in the first place.

Anti-Islamic sentiment in Britain is not new. Groups such as such as England Is Ours and Stop Islamisation of Europe have, for some time, been defending what they see as traditional British/Western culture against a group they see as closeted Islamic extremists who will kill “infidels” or take slaves at the drop of a hat. In fact, they believe that the Koran urges precisely that. Some — like the English Defence League (EDL) — verge on paramilitary fascism in their use of tactics.

Others simply run around in public yelling incendiary phrases. The Mosquebusters, however, are apparently clever enough to avoid those obvious trappings of pro-Western resistance. Foreign Policy Magazine describes their approach as “a war against Islam, but one that often resembles a bureaucratic turf battle more than a clash of civilizations.”

Their leader, who calls himself “The Lawman,” also takes a subtler approach to the question of fighting Islamic influence in Britain. Rather than play into liberal stereotypes of “Islamophobia” and racism, he makes it very clear up front that what concerns him is Islamic doctrine, not people. From his manifesto: “It is primarily about the division between Islamic and non-Islamic society, and the lawless violence at the heart of Islamic doctrine and practice.”

The key message, especially for those with concerns about scandals like the one surrounding the Mosque being built at Ground Zero last year, is as follows:

It’s very seldom that a Mosque outfit will put forward a Mosque calling it a Mosque. They will always try and say it’s for the benefit of the community, it’s a prayer room, it’s a community center for all faiths or all ethnicities. No, it’s not, it’s going to be a Mosque, and if you disobey parts of Islamic law whilst you’re on the premises, you’d better look out. They go under all kinds of names and local authorities lap it up because local authorities are afraid to nullify the politically correct gravy train that they’re riding. It’s good business for them, and things go through under all kind of euphemisms, but they are Mosques.

Foreign Policy:

It’s not religious practice, claim the Mosquebusters, it’s parking. Or noise pollution. Or building codes. And with downloadable petition templates, generic letters to councilors, and free legal advice for begrudged locals, it‘s Boby’s mission to make it as easy as possible for your average, disgruntled suburbanite to join in. If there’s a trial or hearing about planned construction, Boby will come down to the courthouse to provide free legal representation; if a mosque site has been proposed, he’ll arrange volunteers to paper a neighbourhood with flyers.

But the Mosquebusters aren’t just a resource for aggrieved pensioners — the group actually wants its volunteers to spread out, actively trolling city planning offices and public records for mosque applications. “It is satisfying detective work, rooting around Islamic deviousness!” reads the instructional e-mail sent to volunteers.

The process begins by searching for D1 planning applications (non-residential buildings), then checking floor plans for a “prayer room,” checking names of applicants and agents for names that sound Muslim. “It might be lodged under the label of ‘multi-faith center‘ or ’community center,’” says Boby. “Mosque applicants are crafty and often try to hide what it’s really about.”

It might seem that the Mosquebusters is a quixotic, xenophobic campaign limited to a handful of small towns in England, but it has ties to other anti-Islamic groups around the world. People from Australia, Canada, Germany, Scandinavia, and the United States comment on the Mosquebusters website regularly, and the group is often written about by far-right organizations.

“Mosquebusters racks up another win, all was needed was for someone to oppose it’s [the mosques] construction,” crows Tundra Tabloids, a Scandinavian website that claims to keep tabs on the political correctness that allows Islamic extremism to flourish. “This is brilliant. I hope council was paying close attention,” reads a caption on MRCTV, a right-wing news website.

SOURCE





Trees cut down after single complaint about 'slippery berries'

A British bureaucracy would not of course think of consulting with the public



A British council cut down three well-loved rowan trees after receiving just one complaint that fallen berries posed a "slip risk".

Croydon council sent in tree surgeons earlier this month to chop down the 20ft trees, outside warden-assisted accommodation for the elderly.

The trees had been planted at the south London housing complex, Ashwood Gardens, more than 30 years ago.

Pensioners living there spoke of their anger at the council’s action, and even suggested that the name Ashwood Gardens was no longer appropriate.

One resident, who did not wish to be named, said: “The area we live in is very urban and the trees were put up in the 1980s to give at least a sense of being close to the country. "But now everyone thinks the name of the accommodation should be changed as it can hardly be classed as a 'garden’ any more.”

Susan Findlay, 72, who has lived there for three years, said: “No one could quite believe it. "The beautiful trees have gone. They have been here for decades, more than 30 years, and now all that has gone to waste.

“The council worker told me the trees were being chopped down because there was a fear that one of us could fall over by slipping on the berries which had fallen from the trees, but it is just rubbish. I cannot believe the council has listened to just one person.”

A spokesman for the council confirmed it had received one complaint about berries “causing a slip risk”.

SOURCE




Swedish Artist Egged During Lecture on Muhammad Cartoons & Free Speech

Swedish artist Lars Vilks is no stranger to controversy. In the past, he has angered Muslims by creating drawings and art that are highly critical of the Prophet Muhammad. On Tuesday, Vilks, 65, was speaking at Karlstad University in central Sweden when protesters (purportedly Muslims) began attacking the artist with eggs. Ironically, he was invited to the university to speak about free expression (he also presented yet another drawing of Muhammad).

According to Vilk’s account, around a dozen people started yelling at him and throwing eggs while he was addressing the audience. Of course, this isn‘t the first time he’s been targeted and it likely won’t be the last — something the well-known figure has accepted.

“They were just waiting for the right moment to go to attack,” he told the Associated Press. “I’ve experienced this so much now. It is what it is. You have to expect these things. I have good protection and it works the way it should.”

Video footage of the incident shows Vilks running away with security guards covering him as the eggs were hurled in his direction. The disruption, while chaotic, lasted only about one minute and Vilks is said to have not been hit (though individuals assisting him were visibly pelted with the eggs):

“They were also shouting some slogans. We removed them as well as two people who had started shouting back at the 15 (egg throwers)”, explained Tommy Lindh, a police spokesperson. “At the time it was a bit tumultuous but the commotion only lasted for about a minute.”

The Local reports: "The local Islamic Culture Association (Islamiska kulturföreningen) and Karlstad Young Muslims (Unga muslimer i Karlstad) had called for a boycott of the lecture earlier in the day, writing in a statement that Vilks ”abuses the freedom of speech that we all enjoy and uses it in such a way as to create tensions in society.”

During the question and answer period, Vilks spoke of the importance of preventing censorship: “Insults are part of democratic society. If we begin censoring ourselves, it will mean undermining freedom of speech in the long run,” he said. “I don’t think that the problem is that artists are too provocative but that we are not provocative enough.”

Vilks has received death threats in the past from radical Islamists, particularly as a result of his depiction of Muhammad as a dog back in 2007. In 2010, two brothers were put in jail after trying to burn his home down and, in 2011, a Pennsylvania woman pleaded guilty of participating in a plot to kill the artist.

This isn‘t the first lecture during which he’s had problems. In 2010, he was forced to cancel an event at another university after protesters stormed the stage and clashed with police officers.

SOURCE






'Live in the real world' - Australian judge backs smacks

SMACKING your kids can be OK, a judge said yesterday. Judge Paul Conlon yesterday overturned the assault conviction of a stepfather who cuffed his 13-year-old stepson lightly over the head after he swore at his mother and refused to wash the dishes.

The man also grabbed the boy on top of his arm when he tried to go to the bathroom to get out of chores.

The man had been convicted in Wollongong Local Court of assault causing actual bodily harm after the boy's birth father called police. The court had rejected the man's rarely used defence of "lawful correction".

In a decision that will further inflame the debate about smacking, Judge Conlon said children needed effective discipline. "One of the reasons that so many young persons find themselves in trouble with the law is that there has been an absence of any effective discipline in their lives," Judge Conlon said in the NSW District Court.

"I find that the application of that physical force was reasonable, having regard to the fact that the complainant was a healthy 13-year-old boy," he said.

The judge said there was no way he was condoning violence against children. "However, it is a sad day when caring parents, attempting to impart some discipline to the little princes and princesses, are dragged before our courts and have convictions imposed against them in circumstances such as the present," he said.

Judge Conlon said anti-smacking "experts" did not "live in the real world".

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



25 February, 2012

Muslim Admits to Attacking Atheist; Muslim Judge Dismisses Case -- in Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania State Director of American Atheists, Inc., Mr. Ernest Perce V., was assaulted by a Muslim while participating in a Halloween parade. Along with a Zombie Pope, Ernest was costumed as Zombie Muhammad. The assault was caught on video, the Muslim man admitted to his crime and charges were filed in what should have been an open-and-shut case. That’s not what happened, though.

The defendant is an immigrant and claims he did not know his actions were illegal, or that it was legal in this country to represent Muhammad in any form. To add insult to injury, he also testified that his 9 year old son was present, and the man said he felt he needed to show his young son that he was willing to fight for his Prophet.

The case went to trial, and as circumstances would dictate, Judge Mark Martin is also a Muslim. What transpired next was surreal. The Judge not only ruled in favor of the defendant, but called Mr. Perce a name and told him that if he were in a Muslim country, he’d be put to death. Judge Martin’s comments included,

“Having had the benefit of having spent over 2 and a half years in predominantly Muslim countries I think I know a little bit about the faith of Islam. In fact I have a copy of the Koran here and I challenge you sir to show me where it says in the Koran that Mohammad arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted things. Before you start mocking someone else’s religion you may want to find out a little bit more about it it makes you look like a dufus and Mr. (Defendant) is correct. In many Arabic speaking countries something like this is definitely against the law there. In their society in fact it can be punishable by death and it frequently is in their society.

Judge Martin then offered a lesson in Islam, stating,

“Islam is not just a religion, it’s their culture, their culture. It’s their very essence their very being. They pray five times a day towards Mecca to be a good Muslim, before you die you have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca unless you are otherwise told you can not because you are too ill too elderly, whatever but you must make the attempt. Their greetings wa-laikum as-Salâm (is answered by voice) may god be with you. Whenever, it’s very common when speaking to each other it’s very common for them to say uh this will happen it’s it they are so immersed in it.

Judge Martin further complicates the issue by not only abrogating the First Amendment, but completely misunderstanding it when he said,

“Then what you have done is you have completely trashed their essence, their being. They find it very very very offensive. I’m a Muslim, I find it offensive. But you have that right, but you’re way outside your boundaries or first amendment rights. This is what, and I said I spent about 7 and a half years living in other countries. when we go to other countries it’s not uncommon for people to refer to us as ugly Americans this is why we are referred to as ugly Americans, because we are so concerned about our own rights we don’t care about other people’s rights as long as we get our say but we don’t care about the other people’s say”

But wait, it gets worse. The Judge refused to allow the video into evidence, and then said,

“All that aside I’ve got here basically.. I don’t want to say he said she said but I’ve got two sides of the story that are in conflict with each other.”

And: “The preponderance of, excuse me, the burden of proof… “

And: “…he has not proven to me beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty of harassment, therefore I am going to dismiss the charge”

The Judge neglected to address the fact that the ignorance of the law does not justify an assault and that it was the responsibility of the defendant to familiarize himself with our laws. This is to say nothing of the judge counseling the defendant that it is also not acceptable for him to teach his children that it is acceptable to use violence in the defense of religious beliefs. Instead, the judge gives Mr. Perce a lesson in Sharia law and drones on about the Muslim faith, inform everyone in the court room how strongly he embraces Islam, that the first amendment does not allow anyone ” to piss off other people and other cultures” and he was also insulted by Mr. Perce’s portrayal of Mohammed and the sign he carried.

This is a travesty. Not only did Judge Martin completely ignore video evidence, but a Police Officer who was at the scene also testified on Mr. Perce’s behalf, to which the Judge also dismissed by saying the officer didn’t give an accurate account or doesn’t give it any weight.

Needless to say, this is totally, completely and unequivocally unacceptable. That a Muslim immigrant can assault a United States citizen in defense of his religious beliefs and walk away a free man, while the victim is chastised and insulted by a Muslim judge who then blamed the victim for the crime committed against him is a horrible abrogation.

This reeks of those cases we used to read about where a woman is blamed for her own rape because she “was asking for it” by virtue of the clothing she chose to wear, and then having the Judge set the rapist free.

I can promise you this, you have not heard the last of this issue. Not by a long shot.

SOURCE





British PM attacks 'snobs' who criticise big business for making money and having 'no moral worth'

David Cameron has made a passionate defence of big business’s ability to change society for the good as he declared it a ‘powerful force for social progress’.

In a speech this afternoon the Prime Minister also spoke out against the growing ‘anti-business snobbery’ towards large firms that claimed money-makers had ‘no inherent moral worth like the state does’.

The business world has been increasingly accused by critics from across the political spectrum of being greedy and out of touch - typified in recent weeks by attacks on bankers’ bonuses.

More fuel was added to the debate today when taxpayer-backed Royal Bank of Scotland unveiled losses of £2 billion but revealed it had paid staff nearly £1 billion in bonuses last year.

But Mr Cameron used the speech to industry leaders at a business summit, attended by the Prince of Wales, to counter the accusations.

Speaking at the conference organised by Charles’ Business in the Community (BITC) organisation, he said: ‘In recent months we’ve heard some dangerous rhetoric creep into our national debate that wealth creation is somehow anti-social, that people in business are somehow out for themselves.

‘I think we have to fight this mood with everything that we’ve got. ‘Not just because it is wrong for our economy, because we need the jobs and investment that business brings, but because it is also wrong for our society. ‘Business is not just about making money, vital as it is, it is also the most powerful force for social progress that the world has ever known.’

He added that ‘snobbish attitudes' towards money-makers should also be confronted: He said: ‘The snobbery that says business has no inherent moral worth like the state does, that it isn’t really to be trusted, that it should stay out of social concerns and stick to making the money that pays the taxes.’

Mr Cameron also launched two new initiatives today to improve the ‘transparency’ of business. Philip N Green, the Government’s advisor on corporate responsibility, will chair an informal working group called the Open Business Forum to look at the issue. While an online directory called Trading For Good would be established to allow consumers to learn about small businesses doing ‘good things’ and reward them for it.

The Prime Minister returned to his idea of the 'big society', telling the invited business people from companies as diverse as Thomas Cook, BT and Marks and Spencer: 'Corporate responsibility is an absolutely vital part of my mission for this Government to build a bigger, stronger society.

'The big society is all about people recognising that they have obligations beyond paying their taxes and obeying the law not just doing no harm, but doing good. ‘And this applies to businesses just as much as it does to individuals.’

The Prime Minister's words come after George Osborne's warned of 'an anti-business culture' developing in Britain.

Two weeks ago the Chancellor said the growing row over fat-cat pay and bonuses was threatening the economy. He told a meeting of the Federation of Small Businesses: 'At stake are not pay packages for a few but jobs and prosperity for the many.'

Mr Osborne insisted the Government had to do more for commerce and that he was battling against a 'relentless pressure to regulate' within Whitehall.

In a swipe at the BBC, he said: 'It would be so easy to give into the constant stream of vested interests demanding that you regulate a problem away – every time you are interviewed on the Today programme, or meet with the single issue lobby groups or face the trade union campaigns.

'Everything in politics encourages more red tape – everyone insists government must step in – "something must be done" is always the cry. We have to resist these pressures.'

The Chancellor said he understood public concern about bonuses, but insisted it must not be allowed to undermine efforts to restore growth by curbing rewards for success. 'Of course rewards for failure are unacceptable and those who believe in the free market are the first to say so,' he added. 'But a strong, free market economy must be built on rewards for success.

There are those who are trying to create an anti-business culture in Britain – and we have to stop them.'

SOURCE






Cantuar does rather well in debate with Dawkins

I would have expected rather more waffling from His Grace

God does not "clutter up" explanations of how the universe began, the Archbishop of Canterbury has told Britain's most famous non-believer, Professor Richard Dawkins.

Dr Rowan Williams was speaking during a discussion between the pair at Oxford University on Thursday after Dawkins said he did not see why the archbishop would want to clutter up the explanation "with something so messy as a god".

The archbishop said: "I don't see clutter coming into it at all, I'm not thinking of God as an extra who has to be shoehorned into it."

Dawkins said: "That's the way I see it." And the archbishop replied: "That's where we disagree," going on to say that God was "a combination of love and mathematics".

Earlier in the debate a question was asked as to whether Biblical writers "got it wrong" by not saying that the universe is billions of years old.

The archbishop said: "The writers of the Bible, inspired as I believe they were, were not inspired to do 21st century physics, they were inspired to pass on to their readers what God wanted them to know.

"In the first book of the Bible is the basic information - the universe depends on God, humanity has a very distinctive role in that universe and humanity has made rather a mess of it."

Dawkins said: "I am baffled by the way sophisticated theologians who know Adam and Eve never existed still keep talking about it."

The archbishop replied: "It's something that's not a 21st century innovation, but the way people have read Genesis since very early days."

Dawkins said during the debate that he is an agnostic. It was put to him that he is described as the world's most famous atheist. "Not by me," he said. But he was not the kind of agnostic who thought there was a 50/50 chance that God existed. "On a scale of seven, where one means I know he exists, and seven I know he doesn't, I call myself a six." He went on to say he was a "6.9", saying: "That doesn't mean I'm absolutely confident, that I absolutely know, because I don't."

The discussion was on the nature of human beings and the question of their ultimate origin.

SOURCE





It’s Mademoiselle Moutet to you, Monsieur

The French language must not lose the term of address favoured by Chanel and Deneuve, says Anne-Elisabeth Moutet

I commented previously that from what I hear, some French women like to be addressed as "Mademoiselle". Mlle Moutet seems to agree -- JR

It may feel like a victory to all those new feminist groups who’d decided to campaign over it, but I for one shall be sorry to see my Mademoiselle disappear from official French forms. The agitators had been after it for some time, but it is a truth universally acknowledged that if you want a quick media victory, you need only ask Nicolas Sarkozy when he’s running for a difficult re-election.

The issues that really matter to French women – like, say, equal salary in the workplace (women currently earn 27 per cent less than men in the same job) or the dearth of female bosses in the top corporations (current number: 0) – aren’t about to be addressed any time soon. Far too complicated. But a purely cosmetic change that few, apart from a handful of spin-savvy groups such as Les Chiennes de Garde (Guard Bitches) really cared about? A push two months before the first round of the Présidentielles will get you an administrative decision guaranteeing headlines around the world.

It’s not that I disagree with everything the brash French women’s groups have been fighting for. But was it really necessary to deprive the French language of such an interesting nuance simply because it gives an indication of one’s married status? And don’t give me the line about demoiselle meaning “a virgin” in the 16th century. Nobody remembers that any more, and even back then, it only applied to the noble 1 per cent. The others had to make do with fille or jeune fille; a spinster, until about half a century ago, was known as une vieille fille.

But Mademoiselle? It always had its own panache, from princess to Grande Cocotte to stage diva. Think Sarah Bernhardt or Miss Howard, Napoleon III’s mistress. In French history, La Grande Mademoiselle (as court protocol correctly styled her) is a true heroine: Louis XIV’s first cousin, Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, led the aristocratic revolt known as the Fronde at the age of 25 against her young cousin’s project of absolute power. The Grande Mademoiselle led troops, rallied Orléans under siege, and had the Bastille cannons fired against the king’s army. At the age of 43 she married, against the wishes of the king, a nobleman who was six years her junior and whom she had freed from prison; she did eventually kick him out when he cheated (too much) on her.

By Emile Zola’s time, in his great novel of the late 19th-century department stores, The Ladies’ Paradise, Mademoiselle was being used as a class put-down. A staid bourgeois lady deploys it pointedly when addressing a shop assistant. But these days, Madame used in the same context sounds unbearably dowdy; it’s Mademoiselles who dress in Stella McCartney, Isabel Marant or Jean Paul Gaultier. Karl Lagerfeld, meanwhile – a man of variegated insults distributed with easy abandon – used the word “dadame” to describe to me the House of Chanel BK (Before Karl). In his mouth, it was the supreme term of abuse.

Madame was deemed an insult, too, by Coco Chanel herself. A thoroughly modern woman, she always insisted on being Mademoiselle Chanel. She had lovers, but no husband; she had an English duke, Bendor Westminster, stamp every signpost and lamp in London with her initials; she used men’s shapes and fluid jerseys to build clothes in which women could run, play, show their bodies.

Take another famous Mademoiselle-by-choice, Catherine Deneuve. Never mind that she was married to David Bailey and had high-profile affairs and children with Roger Vadim and Marcello Mastroianni. She was resolutely never Madame. Compare her with Vadim’s earlier wife, Brigitte Bardot, who did become a Madame, several times over. It’s difficult not to see Bardot, who gave up her career early on to devote much of her time to animal welfare and the cause of Marine Le Pen, as more of a victim than a feminist star.

By contrast, Deneuve, a style icon and a great beauty at 68, comes off as a winner. When I interviewed Vadim, a surprisingly spiteful serial seducer of great beauties, he was still resentful of Deneuve, decades later, for never marrying him. She had dropped him! Like une tonne de briques! She controlled their son’s education! She went on to have a better career after she left! As far as Deneuve was concerned, calling a woman Madame certainly meant making her walk three paces behind, metaphorically speaking.

Far from indicating a kind of mere real‑woman-in-waiting status, Mademoiselle had become pretty useful to sandbag some people into realising that you are making your own way on your own terms. I plan to keep using it, and intend to encourage my independent‑minded friends to do the same.

After all, now it’s no longer official, we can truly celebrate it as the ultimate rebellion.

SOURCE

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

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

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

*************************** Meet the ‘Mosquebusters’: British Legal Team Out to Stop Islamic Influence in its Tracks

Meet the Mosquebusters — or as they’re officially known, the Law and Freedom Foundation – a group of anti-Islamic vigilantes in Britain with a subtler approach than their peers: Rather than picket Mosque sites, or lead demonstrations of any kind, they sue under Britain’s byzantine legal code to make it illegal for those Mosques to be built in the first place.

Anti-Islamic sentiment in Britain is not new. Groups such as such as England Is Ours and Stop Islamisation of Europe have, for some time, been defending what they see as traditional British/Western culture against a group they see as closeted Islamic extremists who will kill “infidels” or take slaves at the drop of a hat. In fact, they believe that the Koran urges precisely that. Some — like the English Defence League (EDL) — verge on paramilitary fascism in their use of tactics.

Others simply run around in public yelling incendiary phrases. The Mosquebusters, however, are apparently clever enough to avoid those obvious trappings of pro-Western resistance. Foreign Policy Magazine describes their approach as “a war against Islam, but one that often resembles a bureaucratic turf battle more than a clash of civilizations.”

Their leader, who calls himself “The Lawman,” also takes a subtler approach to the question of fighting Islamic influence in Britain. Rather than play into liberal stereotypes of “Islamophobia” and racism, he makes it very clear up front that what concerns him is Islamic doctrine, not people. From his manifesto: “It is primarily about the division between Islamic and non-Islamic society, and the lawless violence at the heart of Islamic doctrine and practice.”

The key message, especially for those with concerns about scandals like the one surrounding the Mosque being built at Ground Zero last year, is as follows:

It’s very seldom that a Mosque outfit will put forward a Mosque calling it a Mosque. They will always try and say it’s for the benefit of the community, it’s a prayer room, it’s a community center for all faiths or all ethnicities. No, it’s not, it’s going to be a Mosque, and if you disobey parts of Islamic law whilst you’re on the premises, you’d better look out. They go under all kinds of names and local authorities lap it up because local authorities are afraid to nullify the politically correct gravy train that they’re riding. It’s good business for them, and things go through under all kind of euphemisms, but they are Mosques.

Foreign Policy:

It’s not religious practice, claim the Mosquebusters, it’s parking. Or noise pollution. Or building codes. And with downloadable petition templates, generic letters to councilors, and free legal advice for begrudged locals, it‘s Boby’s mission to make it as easy as possible for your average, disgruntled suburbanite to join in. If there’s a trial or hearing about planned construction, Boby will come down to the courthouse to provide free legal representation; if a mosque site has been proposed, he’ll arrange volunteers to paper a neighbourhood with flyers.

But the Mosquebusters aren’t just a resource for aggrieved pensioners — the group actually wants its volunteers to spread out, actively trolling city planning offices and public records for mosque applications. “It is satisfying detective work, rooting around Islamic deviousness!” reads the instructional e-mail sent to volunteers.

The process begins by searching for D1 planning applications (non-residential buildings), then checking floor plans for a “prayer room,” checking names of applicants and agents for names that sound Muslim. “It might be lodged under the label of ‘multi-faith center‘ or ’community center,’” says Boby. “Mosque applicants are crafty and often try to hide what it’s really about.”

It might seem that the Mosquebusters is a quixotic, xenophobic campaign limited to a handful of small towns in England, but it has ties to other anti-Islamic groups around the world. People from Australia, Canada, Germany, Scandinavia, and the United States comment on the Mosquebusters website regularly, and the group is often written about by far-right organizations.

“Mosquebusters racks up another win, all was needed was for someone to oppose it’s [the mosques] construction,” crows Tundra Tabloids, a Scandinavian website that claims to keep tabs on the political correctness that allows Islamic extremism to flourish. “This is brilliant. I hope council was paying close attention,” reads a caption on MRCTV, a right-wing news website.

SOURCE





Trees cut down after single complaint about 'slippery berries'

A British bureaucracy would not of course think of consulting with the public



A British council cut down three well-loved rowan trees after receiving just one complaint that fallen berries posed a "slip risk".

Croydon council sent in tree surgeons earlier this month to chop down the 20ft trees, outside warden-assisted accommodation for the elderly.

The trees had been planted at the south London housing complex, Ashwood Gardens, more than 30 years ago.

Pensioners living there spoke of their anger at the council’s action, and even suggested that the name Ashwood Gardens was no longer appropriate.

One resident, who did not wish to be named, said: “The area we live in is very urban and the trees were put up in the 1980s to give at least a sense of being close to the country. "But now everyone thinks the name of the accommodation should be changed as it can hardly be classed as a 'garden’ any more.”

Susan Findlay, 72, who has lived there for three years, said: “No one could quite believe it. "The beautiful trees have gone. They have been here for decades, more than 30 years, and now all that has gone to waste.

“The council worker told me the trees were being chopped down because there was a fear that one of us could fall over by slipping on the berries which had fallen from the trees, but it is just rubbish. I cannot believe the council has listened to just one person.”

A spokesman for the council confirmed it had received one complaint about berries “causing a slip risk”.

SOURCE




Swedish Artist Egged During Lecture on Muhammad Cartoons & Free Speech

Swedish artist Lars Vilks is no stranger to controversy. In the past, he has angered Muslims by creating drawings and art that are highly critical of the Prophet Muhammad. On Tuesday, Vilks, 65, was speaking at Karlstad University in central Sweden when protesters (purportedly Muslims) began attacking the artist with eggs. Ironically, he was invited to the university to speak about free expression (he also presented yet another drawing of Muhammad).

According to Vilk’s account, around a dozen people started yelling at him and throwing eggs while he was addressing the audience. Of course, this isn‘t the first time he’s been targeted and it likely won’t be the last — something the well-known figure has accepted.

“They were just waiting for the right moment to go to attack,” he told the Associated Press. “I’ve experienced this so much now. It is what it is. You have to expect these things. I have good protection and it works the way it should.”

Video footage of the incident shows Vilks running away with security guards covering him as the eggs were hurled in his direction. The disruption, while chaotic, lasted only about one minute and Vilks is said to have not been hit (though individuals assisting him were visibly pelted with the eggs):

“They were also shouting some slogans. We removed them as well as two people who had started shouting back at the 15 (egg throwers)”, explained Tommy Lindh, a police spokesperson. “At the time it was a bit tumultuous but the commotion only lasted for about a minute.”

The Local reports: "The local Islamic Culture Association (Islamiska kulturföreningen) and Karlstad Young Muslims (Unga muslimer i Karlstad) had called for a boycott of the lecture earlier in the day, writing in a statement that Vilks ”abuses the freedom of speech that we all enjoy and uses it in such a way as to create tensions in society.”

During the question and answer period, Vilks spoke of the importance of preventing censorship: “Insults are part of democratic society. If we begin censoring ourselves, it will mean undermining freedom of speech in the long run,” he said. “I don’t think that the problem is that artists are too provocative but that we are not provocative enough.”

Vilks has received death threats in the past from radical Islamists, particularly as a result of his depiction of Muhammad as a dog back in 2007. In 2010, two brothers were put in jail after trying to burn his home down and, in 2011, a Pennsylvania woman pleaded guilty of participating in a plot to kill the artist.

This isn‘t the first lecture during which he’s had problems. In 2010, he was forced to cancel an event at another university after protesters stormed the stage and clashed with police officers.

SOURCE






'Live in the real world' - Australian judge backs smacks

SMACKING your kids can be OK, a judge said yesterday. Judge Paul Conlon yesterday overturned the assault conviction of a stepfather who cuffed his 13-year-old stepson lightly over the head after he swore at his mother and refused to wash the dishes.

The man also grabbed the boy on top of his arm when he tried to go to the bathroom to get out of chores.

The man had been convicted in Wollongong Local Court of assault causing actual bodily harm after the boy's birth father called police. The court had rejected the man's rarely used defence of "lawful correction".

In a decision that will further inflame the debate about smacking, Judge Conlon said children needed effective discipline. "One of the reasons that so many young persons find themselves in trouble with the law is that there has been an absence of any effective discipline in their lives," Judge Conlon said in the NSW District Court.

"I find that the application of that physical force was reasonable, having regard to the fact that the complainant was a healthy 13-year-old boy," he said.

The judge said there was no way he was condoning violence against children. "However, it is a sad day when caring parents, attempting to impart some discipline to the little princes and princesses, are dragged before our courts and have convictions imposed against them in circumstances such as the present," he said.

Judge Conlon said anti-smacking "experts" did not "live in the real world".

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. 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.

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



24 February, 2012

Why Does Valentine’s Day Make Me Cry?

A "Romantic Industrial Complex"? What next? Laurie Essig sounds a very confused young lady below. The second last paragraph sounds sheer gibberish to me

I suspect that she cries because her Leftist hates cut her off from a lot of things that normal people enjoy -- JR

Driving to work yesterday, I was feeling that Valentine’s Day depression that is wont to come upon me on February 14. It’s not just the cliche storyline of boy meets girl, boy buys girl stuff, boy and girl eat dinner, and so it is that love becomes incorporated into the market that gets me down. It is the sinking sense that there is no way to ever escape this story.

So it was that I drove by the church with the billboard that said “Jesus is God’s Valentine to You” and smirked with the ironic distance of my truly analytical feminist brain. But that smirk was quickly wiped off my face as I listened in on a local radio station’s Valentine’s Day special: a real live wedding. Of course it was incredibly predetermined in its presentation—the young high-school friends who were meant to be together but went their separate ways, reunited on Facebook, now marrying live on the radio. Of course their vows said all the right things about for better or for worse as if they were unaware that a lot of marriages don’t really get through the worse times. Of course they played every single cheesy love song in the background as the radio host narrated the bride’s descent down the stairs, the flower girl’s throwing rose petals in her path, the ring boy, the bride’s son from a previous relationship, looking forward to his new life in the “sanctuary” of his new family.

I could have written this scene in my sleep it was so overdetermined by historical, economic, cultural, and narrative forces. And yet I was crying as I listened to it. Why did I cry?

I asked my students in my course on the Sociology of Heterosexuality this very question. “Because,” one of them ventured, “you find their inability to be analytical about the hegemonic discourse of romance depressing?” Yes, of course I do, but that doesn’t explain my tears. This sort of argument—that there is something really and truly inauthentic and wrong about the way the Romantic Industrial Complex (RIC) manipulates us into buying stuff to express our love was beautifully laid out by my comrade in heterosexual studies, Samhita Mukhophadyay over at the Nation. Mukhophadyay points out that:

"There is a romantic-industrial complex that nets billions of dollars from Valentine’s Day and weddings, and it needs you to “buy into” outdated ideas of love and marriage. The more you express your love through candies, chocolates, diamonds, rentals, and registries, the more the RIC makes! Valentine’s Day is only one manifestation of the RIC: Americans spend $70- to $80-billion on weddings each year. With the average American wedding costing $27,000, marriage itself has become a luxury item. This is more than a struggle between old and new traditions—this is about money."

Calling on us to Occupy Valentine’s Day, Mukhopadyay says that we

"Romantic citizens deserve a better, more authentic and sustainable ways to express their affections—whether that be spending time with their friends and families, donating money they would spend on a romantic dinner to a domestic violence shelter, forgoing that expensive wedding for a more meaningful but less costly one. Above all, let’s find a way to honor ourselves that does not rely on buying stuff."

I agree with her completely. In fact I told her that I couldn’t have said it better and there was no reason to post about Valentine’s Day. And then a seriously sad reality began to set in.

It is not that capitalism distorts my authentic human emotion, forcing me to cry over a commercial radio station using a wedding to get me to tune in and hopefully buy stuff they advertise. It is that there is no authentic human emotion floating outside the cultures in which we live. The fact that I experience deep and even desperate feelings of romantic love is not separate from the capitalist exploitation of those feelings; in fact my love is produced by that very exploitation.

And if that doesn’t make us cry on Valentine’s Day, I cannot imagine what would.

SOURCE

Update:

Her picture here suggests other reasons why Ms Essig might be sad





The real reason Britain should cut aid to India

When Britain begs India to keep taking handouts, you know aid is more about nourishing soulless Westerners than feeding hungry Southerners.

The debate about whether Britain should continue giving aid to India will surely rank as one of 2012’s most ‘Alice in Wonderland’ political moments. An outsider to the world of international aid probably imagines that it is cash-strapped countries in the South who do the pleading, sometimes having to humiliate themselves by asking Western nations for financial assistance. Yet in the surreal affray over aid to India, it was the well-off giver – Britain – which was on its knees, begging, beseeching the Indians to continue accepting our largesse because if they didn’t, it would cause the Lib-Con government ‘great embarrassment’.

This unseemly spat sums up the problem with modern aid: it’s all about Us, not Them. The reason British ministers were prostrating themselves before India, effectively begging the Indians to remain as beggars, is because aid is now more about generating a moral rush in the big heads of politicians and activists over here than it is about filling the tummies of under-privileged people over there. It is designed to flatter and satisfy the giver rather than address the needs of the receiver, which means ‘aid to India’ is way more important to Britain than it is to India. And for that reason, because aid has been so thoroughly corrupted by the narrow needs of its distributors, it would indeed be a good thing to stop foisting it upon India and other nations.

There was something almost Pythonesque (and I never use that word) in the sight of British politicians saying ‘We must continue giving aid to India’ while Indian politicians were saying ‘We do not require the aid. It is a peanut in our total development spending.’ Those were the words of India’s finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, who told his parliament that the nation should ‘voluntarily’ give up the £280million it receives from Britain each year. Cue outraged - and panicked - ministers and do-gooders in London kickstarting a PR campaign to show that the Indians are wrong - they do need British aid, because otherwise, according to Britain’s minister for international development Alan Duncan, in an article illustrated with a photograph of him accepting flowers from grateful little Indians, ‘millions could die’.

But it soon became clear that it is Britain, not India, which needs this aid set-up – existentially speaking. Indeed, during last week’s weird clash, it was revealed that, last year, British ministers sent a private communique to India begging it not to free itself from Britain’s apron strings. According to a leaked memo, the Indian foreign minister, Nirumpama Rao, proposed that India should ‘not avail of any further DFID [UK Department for International Development] assistance with effect from 1 April 2011’. Officials at DFID subsequently contacted the Indians and told them that cancelling British aid would cause ‘grave political embarrassment’ to the British government, not only because Britain had spent £1 billion of UK taxpayers’ money on aid to India over the past five years, but also because it has expended much ‘political capital’ on ‘justifying the aid to their electorate’.

‘Political capital’ – that’s the key phrase in this topsy-turvy situation where a relatively well-off Western nation pleads with a developing nation to continue taking alms. Aid is now all about the political capital it provides to the givers, the moral mission it creates for politicians and NGO types who can say ‘WE CARE’. Aid is less about feeding the poor than it is about feeding the egos of Western campaigners who, lacking direction in life, leech off Third World unfortunates in an effort to advertise their own moral decency. This outlook, this use of charity to boost the moral fortunes of the givers rather than dramatically improve the lives of the receivers, is beautifully summed up in a promo leaflet currently being distributed by the British charity Plan – it shows a poor but smiling African girl, wearing rags, alongside the words ‘She can change your life forever’. That is, by giving charity to this girl you can turn your empty, consumerist life around by becoming Good!

This is what poor Africans and Indians now represent to many in the aid industry – symbolically destitute creatures who can help change our lives by allowing themselves to be cooed over and cared for. Forget the days when aid or charity was about trying to change their lives, about improving the lot of the properly downtrodden; now it’s about improving the moral lot of modern-day missionaries in the West. The problem is that, in order to sustain this moral charade of caring Westerners ostentatiously ‘saving’ smiling African girls and empty-tummied Indians, the receivers of British largesse must dutifully play the role of skinny, bewildered, desperate people, because if they don’t, then the self-serving magic of the aid relationship, its ability to change our lives forever, will be lost. And modern India is simply no longer willing to play that role.

Indeed, Indian officials said the reason they want to reject British aid is not only because it is ‘peanuts’, but also because DFID has a tendency to present Indians as financial and moral basket cases who need the help of their now-reformed former rulers. A leaked Indian memo railed against the ‘negative publicity of Indian poverty promoted by DFID’, while an Indian journalist said his country is ‘increasingly exasperated at being treated as a needy beneficiary’. As well it should be. India has grown exponentially in recent years and there have been corresponding leaps forward in social life – life expectancy has risen eight years over the past two decades, to a new average high of 66.8 years. Of course, development is uneven in India and there is still much poverty - but it’s just not on to expect India to play the role of the bowl-waving nation, not only because that’s an inaccurate image but also because it is one cynically drawn up by Western campaigners who need India to stay in that position in order to sustain their own life narratives.

In sending the signal that it no longer wants British aid, India is implicitly rebelling against an aid system that is now more about nourishing the souls of the givers rather than boosting the living conditions of the receivers. Today, it is a lack in the hearts and minds of Western activists, rather than in the stomachs of Southern peoples, which motors the massive aid and NGO industry. At least the old colonial missionaries to the Third World actually had a mission – one which involved trying to ‘improve’ dark-skinned people by giving them the Bible and teaching them English and manners. In contrast, today’s mission-less missionaries, from officials like Alan Duncan to the army of do-gooders who staff Plan and Oxfam and other patronising Third World charities, go to the South in search of a mission and they fundamentally need the poor to stay as they are, as symbols of destitution, in order to prop up the billion-pound piece of moral theatre that is modern international aid.

British historian William Hutton once said, ‘The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation’. That is pretty much all that remains in the world of aid: pride and ostentation. Indeed, it is striking that, in 2010, when DFID announced cuts to spending on the publicity side of ‘fighting global poverty’, various NGOs went ballistic, slamming the focus on ‘output-based aid’ over important things such as ‘increas[ing] public understanding of the causes of global poverty’ – that is, who cares about providing on-the-ground stuff, when there’s so much awareness-raising about the wonderfulness of NGOs to be done? Britain’s aid budget should be slashed, not because it costs the taxpayer too much money, as Daily Mail moaners argue, but because it costs too much in terms of the self-respect of nations in the South. Britain should have an emergency aid budget, of course, so that, like all civilised nations, it can assist quickly and generously when people are immediately threatened by starvation or disease, such as after the Haiti earthquake or the Pakistani floods. But the rest of the time, even sometimes struggling peoples don’t need the massive side orders of moralism and fatalism that come with Britain’s ‘peanuts’.

SOURCE





Official Inquiry into misbehaviour by some journalists has created 'chilling atmosphere that threatens free speech in Britain,' says Tory minister Gove

The Leveson inquiry into Press standards has created a ‘chilling atmosphere’ that threatens free speech in Britain, Michael Gove warned yesterday.

In an outspoken defence of the Press, the Education Secretary cautioned against allowing ‘judges, celebrities and the establishment’ to set the boundaries of free speech because they had a vested interest in shackling the media.

Mr Gove, one of David Cameron’s closest allies, also appeared to question the Prime Minister’s decision to set up the inquiry last year, warning there was a danger it would produce ‘a cure that is worse than the original disease’.

Addressing a Westminster lunch, Mr Gove acknowledged the need to investigate alleged wrongdoing at the News of the World.

But he said there were already laws to prevent reporters ‘going rogue’, including specific offences of intercepting voicemail messages and bribing public officials.

Mr Gove, a former senior journalist at The Times, said there was a natural temptation for politicians to ‘succumb’ to demands for an inquiry by ‘establishment’ figures in the wake of a major scandal.

But he warned there were ‘dangers’ in the wide-ranging inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Leveson.

He said: ‘There is a danger at the moment that what we may see are judges, celebrities, and the establishment, all of whom have an interest in taking over from the Press as arbiters of what a free Press should be, imposing either soft or hard regulation.

‘What we should be encouraging is the maximum amount of freedom of expression and the maximum amount of freedom of speech.’

He added: ‘Journalists should be more assertive in making the case for Press freedom, and politicians should recognise that we have nothing to gain and everything to lose from fettering a Press which has helped keep us honest in the past and ensured that the standard of debate in this country is higher than in other jurisdictions.

‘The big picture is that there is a chilling atmosphere towards freedom of expression which emanates from the debate around Leveson.

'I think that there are laws already in place that we should respect and principles already in place that we should uphold that are central to ensuring that this country remains free.’

Mr Gove said previous inquiries into national scandals had produced reports that ‘give birth to quangos, commissions, and law-making creatures that actually generate over-regulation, over-prescription, and sometimes a cure that is worse than the original disease’.

He said the Food Standards Agency, which was born out of the BSE crisis, had gone from being a ‘body that was responsible for governing the safety of our food to one that became yet another meddlesome and nanny organisation that was telling us what we should eat and in what proportion’.

And he said 800 pages of guidance produced in the wake of the deaths of Victoria Climbie and Baby P was ‘impenetrable and has still not ensured that our children are safer today than they were two, three or five years ago’.

He acknowledged that he had sometimes been ‘irritated’ by Press coverage of his own conduct, but insisted that the media had a key role to play in holding politicians to account.

Sources close to the Education Secretary last night said he supported the decision to set up the inquiry but was concerned about the direction it had taken.

Downing Street said the Prime Minister stood by his decision to order the inquiry, but insisted he valued the role played by the media.

His official spokesman said: ‘He has made very clear on a number of occasions since how important he thinks it is that we have a free Press and free media that is able to challenge governments and others.’

GOVE'S SPEECH: 'A CHILLING ATMOSPHERE TOWARDS FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION'

“One of the things that struck me over the past few months is that a new set of stereotypes every bit as misleading and caricatured as those about politicians, have grown up around journalists and about the media and the way in which it operates. I am thinking in particular about the Leveson inquiry and the debate that has surrounded it.

“One the things that struck me about politics is that there is a particular tendency to which all politicians are tempted to succumb. In the aftermath of a specific crisis, when an undoubted wrong has been done, there is a desire to find a judge, a civil servant, a representative of the great and the good, inevitably a figure from the establishment, to inquire into what went wrong, and to make recommendations about what might be put right.

“It is a natural thing for politicians to do, but there are dangers associated with it. Sometimes the recommendations of that report may be modest, proportionate and sane. But sometimes they give birth to quangos, commissions, and law-making creatures that actually generate over-regulation, over—prescription, and sometimes a cure that is worse than the original disease.

“If we look back at government’s response to various crises in the past, there have been some profound crises that have affected all of our consciences. And because they have affected our consciences, people have wanted to be seen to act. So for example in the immediate aftermath of BSE and the problems associated with the quality of our food, the Food Standards Agency was quite rightly set up,

“But one of the problems is that the Food Standards Agency morphed over time from being a body that was responsible for governing the safety of our food to one that became yet another meddlesome and nanny organisation that was telling us what we should eat and in what proportion.

“The same thing applied to the vetting and barring scheme and also to the Every Child Matters agenda in the wake of the tragic deaths of Victoria Climbie and subsequently Baby Peter. In both cases the tragic death of two children led to an attempt to ensure that we more effectively policed those that worked with young people but the result of that was a situation where Phillip Pullman had to apply for a Criminal Records Bureau check in order to go into a school to read to children.

“In the same way we developed guidance which is 800 pages long, is impenetrable and has still not ensured that our children are safer today than they were two, three or five years ago.

“I see the same dangers in the Leveson inquiry and in the way in which the debate on press regulation are moving now. It is undoubtedly the case that there were serious crimes which were committed, but we know those crimes were serious because they broke, if the allegations are proven, the already existing criminal law. There are laws against the interception of messages, there are laws against bribery, there are laws that prevent journalists like any other professional, going rogue. Those laws should be vigorously upheld, vigorously policed. However, there is a danger at the moment that what we may see are judges, celebrities, and the establishment, all of whom have an interest in taking over from the press as arbiters of what a free press should be, imposing either soft or hard regulation. What we should be encouraging is the maximum amount of freedom of expression and the maximum amount of freedom of speech.

"The reason why I say there is a particular danger at the moment is that because we all know that newspapers are under threat, under threat from the pressure of advertising migrating online, under threat from a variety of new news sources, that is why whenever anyone sets up a new newspaper, as Rupert Murdoch has done with the Sun on Sunday, they should be applauded and not criticised, and that is why journalists should be more assertive in making the case for press freedom, and politicians should recognise that we have nothing to gain and everything to lose from fettering a press which has helped keep us honest in the past and ensured that the standard of debate in this country is higher than in other jurisdictions.”

“The big picture is that there is a chilling atmosphere towards freedom of expression which emanates from the debate around Leveson. I think that there are laws already in place that we should respect and principles already in place that we should uphold that are central to ensuring that this country remains free.”

SOURCE





Murderous animal rights fanatic



I was once myself a registered dog breeder so I was quite inclined to remember the local dog's home in my will. Animal rights extremists do however seem to be infiltrating such traditional charities so they'll now get no money from me, sadly -- JR

An Ohio woman who compared animal-welfare work to the liberation of World War II concentration camps has been charged with soliciting a hit man to fatally shoot or slit the throat of a random fur-wearer, federal authorities said.

Meredith Lowell, 27, of Cleveland Heights, appeared Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, where a magistrate judge ordered her held by the U.S. Marshals Service pending a hearing next week, court records show. One of her defense attorneys, Walter Lucas, declined comment when reached by phone after the court appearance.

Investigators say the FBI was notified in November of a Facebook page Lowell created under the alias Anne Lowery offering $830 to $850 for the hit and saying the ideal candidate would live in northeast Ohio, according to an FBI affidavit filed with the court on Friday.

The affidavit says an FBI employee posing as a possible hit man later began email correspondence with Lowell, and she offered him $730 in jewelry or cash for the killing of a victim of at least 12 years but “preferably 14 years old or older” outside a library near a playground in her hometown.

Here’s exactly how the Facebook post read according to the local ABC affiliate:

"I would like to create an online community on facebook which would allow me to find someone who is willing to kill someone who is wearing fur toward the end of October 2011 or early November 2011 or possibly in January 2012 or February 2012 at the latest. The person willing to do this job would hopefully live in northeast Ohio, somewhere in Ohio, or be able to commute to Ohio and should be against people who wear fur products. I am willing to pay this person up to $830-$850 which is far more than I was originally willing to pay. Groups such as the Animal Rights Militia (also known as Animal Defense Militia) that are willing to kill people who wear fur are welcome to join this page. I welcome members of the Animal Liberation Front, the Animal Rights Militia, and similar groups that are militant to join and anyone else who believe that people who wear fur should be killed."

“You need to bring a gun that has a silencer on it and that can be easily concealed in your pants pocket or coat. … If you do not want to risk the possibility of getting caught with a gun before the job, bring a sharp knife that is (at least) 4 inches long, it should be sharp enough to stab someone and/or slit their throat to kill them. I want the person to be dead in less than 2 minutes,” says an email reprinted in the affidavit.

She told the undercover employee she wanted to be on site when the slaying took place so she could distribute “papers” afterward, the affidavit says. She hoped to be arrested so she could call attention to her beliefs and to get out of the home she shared with her parents and brothers who eat meat and eggs and use fur, leather and wool, investigators said.

Reprinted emails also say Lowell wrote that she sees nothing wrong with “liberating” animals from fur factory farms and laboratories since “soldiers liberated people from Nazi camps in World War 2.”

She also criticized a new aquarium in Cleveland — saying “it is wrong for animals to be taken against their will and put into their (equivalent) of a bathtub” — and research by the Cleveland Clinic, where she said animals should be “liberated and put somewhere where they are not tortured.”

Lowell faces a hearing next Tuesday to determine whether she will be given the opportunity to post bail or be detained without bond pending resolution of the case.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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23 February, 2012

British bureaucrats are only barely human beings

How low can you go? Man drowned in lake just 3ft deep after firemen refused to wade in due to health and safety rules

A charity worker drowned in a 3ft deep lake when a policeman and a paramedic were ordered not to try to rescue him. Simon Burgess, 41, was left to float face down as emergency crews watched.

Health and safety rules stopped them going more than ankle deep into the lake, an inquest was told yesterday.

According to a doctor, Mr Burgess’s life could have been saved had he been removed from the water quickly.

The constable and the ambulance worker who volunteered to jump into the lake were given strict orders not to do so by fire station watch manager Tony Nicholls.

PC Tony Jones arrived at the scene on foot shortly after Mr Burgess fell into the water while feeding swans. He told the inquest: ‘When I spoke to witnesses and found out the body hadn’t been there long I told my sergeant I was willing to go into the water. ‘He authorised me to do so and I took off my body armour but Mr Nicholls advised me strongly not to go in.

‘I said I would go in anyway and asked if I could borrow his life jacket but he said “No”, but I was going to do it regardless. It didn’t sit right with me that no one was going to get the body or assist the person in the water.

‘The control room was informed I was going in and they sent a message that under no circumstances could I go in the water.’

Paramedic Robert Wallace told the hearing he also offered to attempt to retrieve the body from the water at Walpole Park in Gosport, Hampshire. ‘I’m trained to swim in currents you go white water rafting in, but Mr Nicholls told me he didn’t want my help,’ he said.

Mr Nicholls, who is based at Gosport fire station, told the inquest that he understood the body had been in the water for five to ten minutes. ‘There were no obvious signs of life so from that I made an assessment it was a body retrieval and not a rescue,’ he said.

‘The officers were trained to go into ankle deep water, which is level one, so we waited for level two officers, who can go into chest high.

‘One of the police officers told me he would like to go in the water and I advised him in the strongest terms not to. A paramedic told me he was level two water trained, but when I asked him if he had protective equipment he said “No”, so that was the end of that.

‘I was under immense pressure from the three witnesses to go into the water but I gave them a short answer. ‘The specialist team arrived and three officers went in and removed the body.’

A witness told of her frustration at seeing 999 workers stand and wait. Gillian Hughes said the specialist team measured the depth of the water with a pole and even called for a press officer before recovering Mr Burgess’s lifeless body. This was almost 30 minutes after the earlier teams arrived.

Mrs Hughes, 53, said Mr Burgess fell in while trying to retrieve a plastic bag from the water. ‘He looked like he was swimming and had a smile on his face,’ she said.

‘The next minute he had stopped and was lying face down. The firemen arrived with the police and I said “He’s only been there five or ten minutes so if you hurry you might save him”.

‘He just said “We’re not allowed’ and I said “But that’s your job”. Mr Burgess was only 20ft away. I thought they would get him straight away. ‘I believe one of the police went in to get him but was told he was not allowed. I said to one of the firemen “Why don’t you go in?” and he said they couldn’t if the water was higher than ankle deep. ‘I said “You’re having a laugh”. He said “No, that’s health and safety”.

‘After the incident I was unable to sleep because I kept blaming myself and now I have to live with it.’

Brett Lockyer, a registrar of histopathology, told the inquest there were signs Mr Burgess had fallen into the lake because of an epileptic seizure, following unsuccessful brain surgery to ease his condition.

‘If he had been taken out of the water after ten minutes there is a slim chance he could have been resuscitated,’ he said.

‘The seizure would’ve made it look like he was swimming and explains why he had a grin on his face.’

SOURCE





What turns British doctors into tyrants?

The British Medical Association has called for the government to ban all smoking in cars. This follows a similar call from the Royal College of Physicians a few years ago.

The British medical lobby has had an epiphany. Why should they have to worry about adapting to the shifting nature of Britain’s healthcare needs – which reeks of the unwelcome prospect of change – when they can instead simply demand that the government outlaw things that are making us ill?

Allowing people the freedom to do harmful things, and thus to contribute to ‘preventable death’ statistics, is anathema. I mean, if the entire nation were the prisoners of good doctors we would all live much longer.

That very phrase, ‘preventable death’, is symbolic of the problem. It reeks of a ‘something must be done!’ attitude towards people’s lifestyle choices that indicates a widespread disregard on the part of the medical authorities and much of the commentariat for the capacity of ordinary people to make their own decisions.

Of course, nobody will own up to this sort of old-fashioned, paternalist elitism. After all, progressives are meant to respect the working man and woman. Looking down on the ‘great unwashed’ and making moralistic judgements about them is what Tories are meant to do.

So instead, other reasons are found. Sometimes they are small and particular – for example, the car smoking ban is supposed to be about protecting children, even though advocates want to apply it to single drivers as well – and all this on the basis of an almost certainly apocryphal ’26 times the death’ statistic.

More often the reasons are big and sweeping, and none comes bigger than ‘cost to the NHS’. It’s pretty perverse: on the one hand, we insist that our social conscience will not permit anybody, for any reason, to fall beyond the safety net of the state; while on the other we try to claw back as much money as we can by stripping them of freedoms which may weigh heavily on our social treasury.

I’ve written at length about how a certain species of leftist will turn a safety net into a straightjacket and use the NHS as a highly effective basis for authoritarian government. Yet this is really just the logical outworking of the fact that the freedom-minded have almost totally lost the cultural battle about whether or not adult citizens of a country should be respected as such.

That’s the real battle. Important as the individual policy struggles for liberty are, they’ll continue to resemble endless rematches of Canute vs. the Tide unless public perceptions on personal liberty can be fundamentally shifted. Otherwise, each and every state-cutting measure will come with a ‘preventable death’ toll, and progressives will continue to paint liberty as murder-by-omission.

SOURCE





A Leftist hate machine

Bill Press has a new book out called "The Obama Hate Machine." To read the blurbs, you might wonder if Press thinks no one should be allowed to criticize the president. Here's Nancy Pelosi touting the book: "In a poisoned political climate, negative personal attacks on President Obama must have no place in our public discourse."

What's next? A mandate forbidding inappropriate free speech? These tolerant liberals are out of control.

Press appeared on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" on Feb. 12 to plug his book, and he did say "there's legitimate criticism of any president, which I think is very healthy, and I welcome it, and I've been a part of it. Right?" But then he went off the rails.

"I don't know that anybody ever said that Ronald Reagan was a terrorist, or George W. Bush was a terrorist. Right? This isn't a slight difference. It's a huge difference, the level of attacks we've seen against President Obama."

It's proof positive that Bill Press knows very little. Just like in his last embarrassing book, "Toxic Talk," Press claims all the ugly rhetoric comes from conservatives. But this is -- I'll be blunt -- dishonest, and you don't even have to look back in history to prove Press wrong. The Daily Kos had an entry headlined "Ronald Reagan, Terrorist!" on Reagan's 100th birthday last year. Cindy Sheehan called George W. Bush a terrorist routinely. The term is used against conservatives of every stripe.

But let's turn the spotlight back around to Bill Press. How has he performed on the "hate machine" scale? Let's explore the record. Oh, yes, Press has a record, too.

1. On Jan. 13 -- 18 days before his anti-hate book was first issued -- Press called Newt Gingrich a terrorist on MSNBC's Al Sharpton program, "Politics Nation": "He's the suicide bomber of the Republican Party. ... He's in it to take down as many people as he can as he goes down, and he has that same silly grin on his face when he pulls the plug as a suicide bomber."

2. On his radio show on Aug. 6, 2011, in a funding dispute over the Federal Aviation Administration, Bill Press attacked the Republicans: "These guys are terrorists! I'm sorry; I'm sorry; you know, you know Joe Biden; they say he's getting in a little trouble 'cause he called them terrorists. That's exactly what they are!"

3. On June 16, 2010, Press complained that Glenn Beck was granted permission to have a rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. "If you ask me, that's like granting al-Qaida permission to hold a rally on Sept. 11 -- at ground zero."

4. How about death wishes? On his radio show on July 22, 2011, Press played a clip of Speaker John Boehner suggesting Obama "needs to step up and work with us on the spending cuts." He then replied: "You know, it's a wonder lightning just doesn't strike people dead on the spot when they say stuff like that."

5. Nazis? In an Aug. 6, 2009 column, Press slashed at Tea Partiers opposing Obamacare at town hall meetings: "Taking a page right out of a Nazi playbook, organizers bus in professional protestors and arm them with instructions on how to take over meetings, shut down discussion, shout over any pro-health care reform speakers and then post video of the resulting chaos on YouTube. It's mob rule, pure and simple."

6. On Oct. 10, 2008, Todd Palin's reported support for a secessionist party in Alaska drew this radio blast from Press: "What's the difference between a secessionist and a terrorist? Isn't a secessionist just another form of a terrorist? Ask Abraham Lincoln. ... Let's find out what the 'First Dude' was going to do in order to secede from the Union. I tell you it wasn't going to be peaceful."

7. And then there's the good old-fashioned insult. On July 25, 2006, Press declared who was the dumbest president ever: "George W. Bush, with his rock bottom IQ of 91: seven points lower than his Daddy. ... He's just plain dumb -- the dumbest president in the last 50 years. And probably, the dumbest president ever!"

Press's alleged IQ information by the "Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pa." was a hoax, entirely made up, which underlined just who shouldn't be calling other people dummies.

8. But Bill Press really thinks American voters are also morons. On his radio show on Nov. 4, 2010, Press proclaimed: "Just once ... I would like to hear somebody say, 'The voters have spoken, the bastards.' Or, 'The voters have spoken. What a bunch of idiots.' 'The voters have spoken. God, they're dumb. Dumb as hell.'"

Most Americans won't be dumb enough to buy Bill Press's book or believe a word he says against other people building their "hate machines."

SOURCE





Bizarre claim: Dislike of homosexuality turns you into a Catholic

Considering the number of bent priests we have heard about, I think it more likely to be the other way around, if anything

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews made comments last night that will certainly be taken negatively by some people who embrace the Catholic faith.

“If you’re really anti-gay, you become a Catholic now,“ he reportedly proclaimed during the ”Presidential Leadership Panel,” an event focusing upon politics in America.

Following the panel discussion, which also featured Civil War expert Harold Holzer and presidential historian Michael Beschloss, Scott Whitlock of the Media Research Center asked Matthews — an admitted Catholic himself — to clarify his comment about Catholics and homosexuality.

“Earlier tonight, you were talking about Nixon and the Southern Strategy and bigotry and things like that you and you said, quote, ‘If you’re really anti-gay, you become a Catholic now,’” Whitlock said. “I was wondering if you were saying that bigots become Catholic now and if you wanted to expand or apologize for that?”

Matthews responded, doubling down on his comment, while simultaneously attempting to tempter it. An apology, of course, wasn’t in order.

“I think there are people who have chosen to convert to the Catholic faith because they don’t like the liberal positions taken by their sectarian groups,” Matthews explained. “That’s a fact. So, you can write that down. No, you can write that down.”

Whitlock, though, wasn’t done pushing the issue. “So, you’re saying Catholicism is drawing bigots? Is that what you’re saying?,” he asked.

“I’m saying that some people who are bigoted against gay people have changed religions,” Matthews answered. “Yes. You got it right.”

SOURCE

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

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

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

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22 February, 2012

Surprise! Surprise! Christian carer who refused to work on Sundays 'denied rights given to a Muslim allowed to visit mosque'

A Christian care worker was forced from her job for refusing to work on Sundays even though a Muslim colleague had time off on Fridays to visit the mosque, a tribunal heard yesterday.

Celestina Mba, 57, claims she was threatened with disciplinary action after telling her employer her church duties came first.

In her evidence, she said she felt so intimidated by bosses at Brightwell children’s home in Morden, South London, that she had to resign.

‘I was willing to work at any unsocial time of shift in order to preserve my Sundays, I was prepared to work nights, or Saturdays,’ she said.

‘I would have been willing to consider any hours of work, or even a reduction in pay. I believe that my employer did not want to compromise and saw the issue as a question of management power with disrespect to the Christian faith. I have been treated very badly.’

Miss Mba, who has three grown-up children, is suing Merton council for constructive dismissal on the grounds of religious discrimination.

London South Employment Tribunal heard Miss Mba worships every Sunday at her Baptist church and is part of the ministry team visiting hospitals and providing pastoral care for young women.

She said that at her job interview in May 2007 she told her manager John Deegan she was unable to work Sundays, a request he said he could ‘work around’. But seven months into the job she was told she had to cover Sundays.

Miss Mba said she launched an official complaint and tried to come up with solutions to the problem but felt her bosses were being obstructive.

The tribunal heard she arranged shift swaps with colleagues, only for this to be blocked by management.

In January 2010, Miss Mba was called to a disciplinary hearing after refusing to work a Sunday shift she had not obtained cover for. She resigned four months later and has not been able to find work since.

She claims that despite stopping her going to church, the same managers were happy to allow a Muslim member of staff to attend mosque every Friday.

Mr Deegan, who also gave evidence, told the tribunal he did not believe Miss Mba had specified she could not work Sundays and said he did not know of any Muslim employee being given special treatment. The hearing continues.

Last week, Baroness Warsi, Tory Party chairman, said a ‘liberal elite’ was attempting to downgrade the importance of religion in public life.

Andrea Williams, of the Christian Legal Centre, which is fighting Miss Mba’s claim, said: ‘This is another example of Christianity being marginalised in public life. The issue could have been easy to resolve by way of a common sense approach.

‘Increasingly, we see a readiness among employers to accommodate other religions but Christianity seems to be fair game.’

Employment laws do not give Christians the right to Sunday off but bosses must justify Sunday working as a ‘legitimate business need’.

SOURCE






We'll stand up for the majority: Minister signals an end to multiculturalism

The English language and Christian faith will be restored to the centre of public life, ministers are to pledge today. Eric Pickles will praise the traditions and heritage of ‘the majority’ and describe multiculturalism as the politics of division.

Public bodies should no longer ‘bend over backwards’ to translate documents into dozens of languages and migrants must be asked to learn English and understand the British way of life, the Communities Secretary will say. Children should be educated in a ‘common culture’, promoting a British identity that crosses class, colour and creed.

Events such as the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics should be used to celebrate traditional culture and ‘fly the flags of Britain’ with pride.

Mr Pickles was speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail ahead of today’s announcement of a new strategy on community cohesion and integration.

He said the last Labour government and Harriet Harman, who was its equalities minister, had ‘encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream’.

The minister said the Coalition celebrated Britain’s tradition as a nation of ‘tolerance’ and insisted he was proud to celebrate the special customs and practices that make communities unique. ‘But it’s sad to see how, in recent years, the idea of tolerance has become twisted,’ Mr Pickles added.

‘A few people, a handful of activists, have insisted that it isn’t enough simply to celebrate the beliefs of minority communities; they want to disown the traditions and heritage of the majority, including the Christian faith and the English language.

‘In recent years we’ve seen public bodies bending over backwards to translate documents up to and including their annual report into a variety of foreign languages.

‘We’ve seen men and women disciplined for wearing modest symbols of Christian faith at work, and we’ve seen legal challenges to councils opening their proceedings with prayers, a tradition that goes back generations, brings comfort to many and hurts no one. ‘This is the politics of division.’

Mr Pickles said political correctness had replaced common sense and left millions of people afraid to express legitimate concerns and frustrations. ‘We need a new approach: one that emphasises what we have in common rather than difference,’ he added.

‘Harriet Harman was leading the country down the wrong path. If we are to remain a country where people of different backgrounds feel at ease and get along, we need more confidence in our national traditions. We need to draw a line. ‘We must be unafraid to insist on the common ground and common values we all share.

‘It’s right to stand up for the right of councils who wish to start their proceedings with a prayer. If we want people of all faiths to feel at home and able to contribute here, the last thing we should be doing is knocking Christianity.

‘By the same token, it’s right to ask new migrants to demonstrate a grasp of the English language and an understanding of British traditions. It would be plain unkind is to encourage people to come here without the basic skills and understanding that are vital to getting on in a job, in education and the local community.’

Far from seeing religion as a problem that needs to be solved, ministers regard it as part of the solution, according to Government sources.

The days of the state trying to suppress Christianity – and other faiths – should be over, they said, with the Government aiming to use neighbourhood schemes and other projects to bring different faiths together. Today’s strategy will say the Government believes in certain values and ‘will actively promote them’ – including freedom of speech, freedom of worship, democracy and the rule of law.

It will pledge to challenge extremism in all its forms and tackle those who spread ‘hatred and division’. Ministers plan to marginalise extremist behaviour and improve the recording of hate crime against the Muslim and Jewish communities.

Requiring incomers to learn English, ministers will say, will help improve social mobility.

‘We want to help people realise their potential to get on in life. It’s not about where you are from, but where you are going. We want immigrants to speak the language of their new home,’ said a Government source. ‘People should be educated in elements of a common culture and curriculum.’

SOURCE





Flemish Politician, Daughter Receive Death Threats Over Muslim Veil & Bikini Ad Campaign

Typical Muslim behaviour. Violence and aggression is all they know

A Flemish nationalist politician in Belgium said he and his daughter have received death threats after she posed in a Muslim veil and bikini as part of his “Women Against Islamization” campaign.

Filip Dewinter, head of the far-right Vlaams Belang — or “Flemish Interest” party — used a photo of his 19-year-old daughter An-Sofie wearing only a niqab — a face-covering Islamic veil — and cloak over her swimsuit-clad body in the campaign earlier this month, the Daily Mail reported. Across her chest is the message “Freedom or Islam?“ and ”You choose!” over her hips.

According to NBC News, Vlaams Belang advocates strict immigration limits and believes new arrivals to the country should adopt the Flemish language and culture. The point of the campaign, the Daily Mail said, is to convince Belgian women to take a stand against Islam:

Ms Dewinter told the Belgian press she does not feel used by the party. She said: ‘I’ve suggested (the poster) myself, I have learned to live with it but I have had everything up to death threats made at me.’

She said that she ‘ wanted to make this statement.’ She added: ‘What is the greatest contrast with a niqab? Nude. ‘The campaign fits in perfectly with how I feel about the whole issue. As women, we must choose: freedom or Islam.’

Since the campaign started, Filip Dewinter told Fox News, he and An-Sofie have received hate mail and death threats.

“There were some threats, yes of course, and I’m very worried about them,” he said. “But nevertheless if nobody speaks up — she’s a grown up girl, she’s 20 years old.”

For her part, An-Sofie seemed to brush off any possible danger. “It doesn’t scare me,” she told Fox News. “I don‘t think they’re serious. I hope not.”

SOURCE





Is Newsweek Redeeming Itself Or Is It Just An Aberration?

Newsweek has been at the vanguard of the liberal mainstream media. Often these media outlets compete to see who is more anti-Christian. Through the years, many of them have led with sensational [yet historically questionable] headlines regarding Christ and Christianity. These headlines range from the denial of the resurrection of Jesus to the denial of the virgin birth, all the way to the denial of Jesus’ existence.

That is why some faithful, Bible-believing, intellectual Christians have been pleasantly surprised by Newsweek’s headline in the February 13, 2012 issue, “The War on Christians.” Wow! Someone woke up and is finally beginning to see the truth.

What was even more pleasantly surprising was the writer’s absolute candor, not only in exposing the widespread persecution and killing of Christians from Nigeria to Egypt to Pakistan to Indonesia, but in exposing the deliberate closing of the eyes on the part of her fellow mainline Western media.

In this masterpiece by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she exposed how Islamists led by Saudi Arabia and the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] “over the past decade...have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called ‘Islamophobia’ – a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia.”

Truth-seeking Christians have been screaming from the top of their lungs, hoping that someone would listen and examine this propaganda by CAIR as being nothing short of mind control. While examples of Islamophobia are reported repeatedly, the killing and beheading of Christians in the Muslim world brings nary a peep out of them.

Speaking of mind control, CAIR has single-handedly derailed Christian speakers from appearing in military Christian functions. From the denial of General Boykin speaking at the West Point prayer breakfast to Franklin Graham being denied a speaking opportunity at the Pentagon, CAIR now exerts great power on the Obama administration.

Newsweek’s expose, while indeed a welcome breath of fresh air in an Islamist fog choking Western media culture, only touches the tip of the iceberg of what is going on in the war of Islamists on Christians.

May it be that the truth is now beginning to seep out, and may it be that other mainstream media outlets begin to open their blind eyes and see the truth clearly.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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21 February, 2012

British boy, 7, branded a racist for asking schoolmate: 'Are you brown because you come from Africa?'

And the thought-police are not backing down

The mother of a seven-year-old boy was told to sign a school form admitting he was racist after he asked another pupil about the colour of his skin. Elliott Dearlove had asked a five-year-old boy in the playground whether he was ‘brown because he was from Africa’.

His mother, Hayley White, 29, said she received a phone call last month to say her son had been at the centre of a ‘racist incident’. She was then summoned to a meeting with Elliott, his teacher and the deputy head of Griffin Primary School in Hull.

Ms White, an NHS healthcare assistant, said: ‘When I arrived at the school and asked Elliott what had happened, he became extremely upset. 'He kept saying to me, “I was just asking a question. I didn’t mean it to be nasty” and he was extremely distressed by it all.’

Ms White claimed she was asked at the meeting to read a copy of the school rules and in particular its zero-tolerance policy on racism. ‘I was told I would have to sign a form acknowledging my son had made a racist remark which would be submitted to the local education authority for further investigation,’ she said.

‘I refused to sign it and I told the teacher in no way did I agree the comment was racist. My son is inquisitive. He always likes to ask questions, but that doesn’t make him a racist.’

The school had launched an investigation after the younger boy told his mother about Elliott’s comment and she complained.

Ms White, who lives in a three-bedroom house with her son and nine-year-old daughter Olivia, has now applied to have Elliott moved from the school. She claimed she was told there were places at nearby Thanet Primary School, but the council informed her last Friday that this was not the case. ‘I am going to appeal against this decision because I think Elliott is being victimised,’ she said.

Karl Turner, Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, last night insisted that the school and Hull City Council had a statutory duty to take racism seriously. ‘However, having spoken to Hayley, I’m satisfied that her seven-year-old son, Elliott, was not being racist in his remarks but just inquisitive,’ he said. ‘It seems the matter has been taken out of all proportion and common sense seems to have gone completely out of the window.’

In a statement, Griffin Primary head teacher Janet Adamson said the school had acted ‘in accordance with the council’s guidance for schools on the reporting of racist incidents’.

Vanessa Harvey-Samuel, head of localities and learning at Hull City Council, said: ‘There is a statutory duty to report any incident that is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.’

Last year, it was revealed that teachers are branding thousands of children racist or homophobic following playground squabbles. More than 20,000 pupils aged 11 or younger were put on record for so-called hate crimes such as using the word ‘gaylord’.

SOURCE




Australians to be healed from 'Islamophobia' by head of global Islamic organisation -- at the invitation of Foreign Minister Rudd

This week Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has invited Professor Ekmelledin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to discuss “Transition and Change: The OIC and the Islamic World”

Events take place on February 15th and 16th at the National Press Club of Australia and at Griffith University, Brisbane. Following similar events in Europe and Washington, Mr Rudd’s visitor is here to educate and help us overcome “Islamophobia” in Australia.

The OIC, which represents 56 Islamic states, makes up the largest voting bloc of the UN.

United in their effort to limit critical discussion of the Islamic religion and sharia law, these countries refuse to sign the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. OIC members construed the ‘Cairo Declaration’, in which human rights are subject to interpretation by Islamic clergy and sharia law. The OIC is headquartered in Saudi Arabia, a feudal monarchy renown for violation of basic human rights under strict sharia law.

The feigned concern of the OIC with discrimination against Islam and more notably views not supportive of Islam is in contrast to the violent intolerance experienced by non-Muslim minorities in many Islamic countries. Indigenous religious minorities, which are not afforded the same respect, recognition or equality demanded by the OIC for Muslim immigrants in the West.

Author and human rights activist Ayan Hirsi Ali‘s recent article 'The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World' highlights “... an unrecognised battle costing thousands of lives.” With these facts in mind, there are serious questions democratic governments should be asking the OIC, before taking advice from Professor Ihsanoglu.

Q Society appeals to Mr Rudd to show courage and openly address this discrepancy and the discrimination against non-Muslims, evident in almost every OIC country.

Vilifying critics of Islam and sharia practices as 'islamophobic' is in fact aiding and abetting those who seek to silence the debate about the rise of Islamic sharia, both in the West and in the once secular countries of the OIC.

SOURCE




Political Correctness is Hurting America

I recently ran across an old Internet joke that attempts to define the term “political correctness.” The joke reads: “Political correctness is a doctrine – fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media – which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end.” It’s as funny as it is nakedly true. It started me thinking about how political correctness affects us.

I know it does not help us – because as a nation we have come far through fundamental honesty with each other. I am passionate that our success as a nation stems in large part from the brilliance of our founders starting with the freedom embodied in the First Amendment. This freedom has been complemented by a culture which, until recently, encourages and rewards the type of Will Rodgers honesty, entrepreneurial challenge to the status quo, and an immigrant-inspired push for something better. The precise antithesis of political correctness.

Political correctness is the enemy of honest communication. We saw it last year with the firing of Juan Williams from NPR after he said: “I’m not a bigot … But when I get on a plane, I’ve got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

What’s troubling about this episode is that Williams was attempting to begin an honest discussion and got canned for it. As one who has spoken and written about civil rights, he was clearly doing some introspection and contrasting his feelings against what he had knew was the “correct” feeling. All Williams’ firing did was reinforce the concept that we should not have honest discussions about tough issues like religion and ethnicity.

But it’s not just in the political-pundit realm that political correctness has shut down the First Amendment. Take the laws protecting anyone in a “suspect class” from hiring, promotion or firing discrimination. As any lawyer, HR manager or employer knows, this means that an employer incurs more legal risk in hiring or firing anyone who is not a white male under 40. That means it is safer and less risky to hire a white male under 40. Given what these laws are trying to accomplish, does that make any sense at all?

Political correctness does not allow us to have a discussion on the harmful impact these laws may be having on hiring of females, minorities, disabled and those who are older. Many employers have encountered an employee who doesn’t work out, hires a lawyer and extorts a settlement from the employer. We hired an employee who was over 60 and insisted on a nap every day. When terminated for poor performance she hired an attorney who said we were discriminating against her on the basis of her age.

Political correctness prevents the type of honest discussion we need to solve our biggest problems. Our nation is in trouble. We are struggling largely because we are not being honest with each other. We are selecting politicians who promise easy solutions and avoid tough discussions.

We cannot expect to recover our economic prosperity when we pillory any politician, pundit or organization that dares to touch the third-rail. We should reward the Juan Williamses of the world for asking the tough questions. The difference between a culture of honesty, respect and diversity is different from a legal and elite mandate of a code of silence that precludes discussion of the toughest issues.

America can and should do better. We can begin by discussing and recognizing that political correctness is neither healthy nor helpful in the type of honest discussion we need to solve the big problems we face. This does not mean we need to change laws or start discriminating. It means we need to stop the censors and confront our divisive issues. Americans have turned on each other, and political correctness is the weapon of choice in ensuring we stay divided.

SOURCE




Rising Black Social Pathology

Walter E. Williams

The Philadelphia Inquirer's big story Feb. 4 was about how a budget crunch at the Philadelphia School District had caused the district to lay off 91 school police officers. Over the years, there's been no discussion of what has happened to our youth that makes a school police force necessary in the first place. The Inquirer's series "Assault on Learning" (March 2011) reported that in the 2010 school year, "690 teachers were assaulted; in the last five years, 4,000 were." The newspaper reported that in Philadelphia's 268 schools, "on an average day 25 students, teachers, or other staff members were beaten, robbed, sexually assaulted, or victims of other violent crimes. That doesn't even include thousands more who are extorted, threatened, or bullied in a school year."

I graduated from Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin High School in 1954. Franklin's students were from the poorest North Philadelphia neighborhoods -- such as the Richard Allen housing project, where I lived -- but there were no policemen patrolling the hallways. There were occasional after-school fights -- rumbles, we called them -- but within the school, there was order. Students didn't use foul language to teachers, much less assault them.

How might one explain the greater civility of Philadelphia and other big-city, predominantly black schools during earlier periods compared with today? Would anyone argue that during the '40s and '50s, back when Williams attended Philadelphia schools, there was less racial discrimination and poverty and there were greater opportunities for blacks and that's why academic performance was higher and there was greater civility? Or how about "in earlier periods, there was more funding for predominantly black schools"? Or how about "in earlier periods, black students had more black role models in the forms of black principals, teachers and guidance counselors"? If such arguments were to be made, it would be sheer lunacy. If white and black liberals and civil rights leaders want to make such arguments, they'd best wait until those of us who lived during the '40s and '50s have departed the scene.

Over the past couple of decades, I've attended neighborhood reunions. I've asked whether any of us recall classmates who couldn't read, write or perform simple calculations, and none of us does. Back in those days, most Philadelphia school principals, teachers and counselors were white. At Stoddart-Fleisher junior high school, where I attended, I recall that only one teacher was black, and at Benjamin Franklin, there might have been two. What does that say about the role model theory? By the way, Asian-Americans are at the top of the academic ladder, and, at least historically, they rarely experience an Asian-American teacher during their K-through-12 schooling.

Many black students are alien and hostile to the education process. They are permitted to make education impossible for other students. Their misbehavior and violence require schools to divert resources away from education and spend them on security, such as hiring school police and purchasing metal detectors, all of which does little for school safety. The violent school climate discourages the highest-skilled teachers from teaching at schools where they risk assaults, intimidation and theft. At a bare minimum, part of the solution to school violence and poor academic performance should be the expulsion of students who engage in assaults and disrespectful behavior. You say, "What's to be done for these students?" Even if we don't know what to do with them, how compassionate and intelligent is it to permit them to make education impossible for other students?

The fact that black parents, teachers, politicians and civil rights organizations tolerate and make excuses for the despicable and destructive behavior of so many young blacks is a gross betrayal of the memory, struggle, sacrifice, sweat and blood of our ancestors. The sorry and tragic state of black education is not going to be turned around until there's a change in what's acceptable and unacceptable behavior by young people. That change has to come from within the black community.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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20 February, 2012

The obscene priorities of a bureaucratic state

Britain's Ministry of Defence civil servants paid £40m in bonuses while armed forces face deep cuts

One senior civil servant was awarded an £85,831 bonus on top of their six-figure salary - at the same time as members of the armed forces have been subject to a two-year pay freeze and 20,000 are to be made redundant.

The bonuses have been paid since April last year and have seen more than 55,000 officials awarded extra payments for their performance - out of a payroll of 83,000.

The ministry expects to pay more in bonuses in the current financial year than the last, even thought it is attempting to drastically reduce the number of civil servants as part of cuts to Government expenditure.

The MoD has been particularly heavily criticised for its financial performance, particularly in defence procurement where major projects have been criticised for being late and overspent.

The department has only just balanced its books by making deep cuts to Britain’s military - including the Army shrinking to its smallest size since the Boer War - which critics say could have been much less severe if it had not been so financially mismanaged.

Bonuses remain a controversial area of pay within the MoD and are linked to a complicated series of targets which can range from cost savings to hitting diversity targets.

Ministers have spoken of the need to rein in the bonus culture in Whitehall and make the payments genuine rewards for exceptional performances, rather than routine parts of civil servants’ remuneration.

However, The Sunday Telegraph has learned that the level of bonuses in the MoD are not expected to be reduced given that staff have faced a two year pay freeze.

In the past year 56 senior officials - those in the highest civil service grades - shared £505,000, averaging £9,000 each. Junior staff were handed a total of £37.9 million, typically taking home £697 - meaning 54,375 of its employees received bonuses, a level in contrast to ministers’ intention that bonuses are not given routinely.

The highest level of bonuses were awarded to the Department of Work and Pensions, whose employees scooped £51 million. The Department of Transport paid out £9.2million, the Foreign Office £6.4 million and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs £2.3 million. The Department for Education spent £1.9 million on bonuses, the Department for Health £1.7 million, the Cabinet Office £1.3million and the Department for Innovation and Skills £1.1million.

But it will be the two highest bonuses which raise most questions about the culture within the ministry.

The £85,831 payment - the same as the salary of a colonel in the Army - went to an unnamed senior civil servant who is understood to be a member of the Defence Board.

It oversees every aspect of the work of the MoD and includes three civil servants - Ursula Brennan, the permanent secretary, Bernard Gray, the chief of defence materiel and Jon Thompson, the director-general of finance.

The second largest bonus was a payment of £64,459 to another unnamed senior civil servant.

The scale of the bonuses raised concern even inside the MoD.

One source said: “Time and again we have been told that we all have to tighten our belts and share some of the financial pain so it sticks in the throat when you discover that someone already earning well over £100,000 gets an £85,000 bonus.”

The payments were made at the same time as criticisms mounted over the long-running performance of the MoD.

Last week it announced that it had finally closed the £38 billion “black hole” in its budget by balancing its books - but in November received stinging criticism over its procurement policies from the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.

Margaret Hodge, its chairman, said the MoD had been guilty of “continuous poor planning and performance with the result that the Ministry of Defence’s largest military equipment projects are delivering less, at a greater cost than planned, and taking longer to be completed”.

The report found warned that Britain’s 15 biggest defence projects are expected to cost £6bn more than first estimated and will be delayed by a combined total of 26 years.

And it highlighted the repeatedly delayed Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft, upon which £3.4bn was spent before it was scrapped, to save an estimated £1.9bn in running costs over the next 10 years.

The MoD said it was impossible to rein in bonuses this year because of a three-year pay and bonuses deal implemented by the previous Labour government.

But the payments are in stark contrast to the settlement for soldiers, sailors and RAF personnel, who have had pay rises capped at 1 per cent.

The deep cuts will see the Army made much smaller with a withdrawal from Germany, tank and artillery units slashed, the Ghurkas reduced in size and soldiers at every level made redundant and the RAF losing bases and planes.

The Navy has already lost its Harrier jump jets and now operates the smallest fleet in its history.

The Coalition is currently attempting to slash the levels of bonuses paid and the number of civil servants who receive them.

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, and Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, have written to all government departments asking them to review their schemes.

In future, bonuses should only be paid for “genuine excellence” and not “run-of-the-mill performance after it emerged that up to a quarter of officials automatically qualified for rewards.

Since Britain went to war with Iraq in March 2003, MoD bureaucrats have shared around £370million in bonuses. This is a third higher than the £260million cost of the war in Libya.

It has also emerged that senior servants are entitled to claim for damaged clothing, handbags and shoes at the expense of the taxpayer even if the government department was not negligent.

A MOD spokesman said: “Difficult decisions have had to be taken to deal with the black hole the Government inherited; this has included reductions to military and civilian personnel.

"Under a three year agreement made by the last Government performance awards were part of the total wage bill paid out naturally, it is just that a proportion of pay was spent on a performance basis.

"More than half of all MOD civil servants earn less than £20,000 a year, and in 2010-11 the average award, which is taxable, was £677. The new Government has since implemented a pay freeze.”

The bonus figure comes after the disclosure that senior civil servants across Whitehall have perks which include being able to claim towards to cost of clothes and shoes which have been damaged or even simply become worn.

SOURCE




More woes from living in bureaucratic Britain

Four-hour delays at Heathrow thanks to immigration staff shortage as tens of thousands of passengers return from half-term getaway. Britain's huge bureaucracy still cannot provide basic services

Passengers at Heathrow airport are facing severe delays this weekend as a shortage of immigration staff causes chaos during the busy rush of families returning from half-term breaks to the UK.

Travellers may be forced to wait several hours before they get through immigration because of apparent staff shortages.

Sky news home affairs correspondent Mark White said: 'This has all the potential to be a very difficult weekend for passengers. 'The airlines at Heathrow have issued an urgent bulletin to staff saying they're expecting delays of up to three hours. 'It's a combination of half-term holidaymakers returning to Heathrow but also apparently lower staffing levels at immigration checkpoints.'

British Airways admitted congestion was already starting to build up in the immigration area in Terminal Five. A BA spokeswoman said: 'We are speaking to Heathrow Airport and UK Border Agency to understand why the immigration area in Terminal Five is congested. 'We are doing all we can to assist our customers and are sorry that they are being affected by this issue, which is regrettably beyond our control.'

A Heathrow Airport spokesman said they were unaware of any immigration staff shortages - claiming it didn't come under their remit. A spokesman for Heathrow added: 'No one has notified us of a staff shortage. However it is up to UK Border Agency to staff the border appropriately.'

Heathrow Airport has 1,231 flights carrying 180,100 passengers a day - with half of those being inbound flights. Last year the airport saw 65.7million passengers with 23.4 millions of those going through terminal five.

But the UK Border Agency has dismissed the concerns - saying they are prepared for the busy weekend. The UK Border Agency released a statement saying: 'There will be a significant number of passengers coming through UK border controls and we have organised extra resources to ensure that we have sufficient staff to process passengers as quickly as possible, while maintaining border security.'

But other immigration checks - such as the multi-million pound Iris Recognition Immigration System (IRIS) introduced to speed up passport control - have proven to take far longer than physical checks. The £9million system have already been ditched at Birmingham and Manchester airports and are expected to disappear from Heathrow and Gatwick after the Olympics

It added that it was expecting 'an exceptionally busy weekend as usual for the end of February half-term'.

But Mr White said queuing passengers at immigration would have a knock-on effect on incoming flights. He added: 'Some may have to circle around Heathrow for longer and some may have to be diverted to other airports.'

SOURCE





Mom Who Made Son Walk to School Is Child Abuser -- Seriously?

Valerie Borders, an Arkansas mom, made her 10-year-old son Nequavion walk to school after being suspended (for the fifth time) from riding the school bus. Was she congratulated? Nope. As per ABC News, Mom was charged with child endangerment and faces one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Let's unwrap the child abuse charges. KAIT says walk to school was longish (4.5 miles). A compassionate, public-spirited (or nosy, bored) bank security guard spotted the lad trudging to school and called the police. The tween boy implored the officer, "Please sir, don't take me home or my mother will beat me." So very Dickensian.

It was also coldish, 30 degrees, though in my home state of Michigan, that's a balmy spring breeze. Kids walk daily through cold and snow in our area. Stores also sell inclement weather apparel in kids' sizes, (Nequavion was wearing such a garment). Anyway, the concern wasn't weather as much as stranger danger or injury, said officer Lyle Waterworth. He encourages other helpful citizens to call the police when they see kids walking alone.

Segue. I find no fault with the police officer for checking this out. As a mandatory reporter, he has to; it's the law. He may have suspected that Nequavion's "beating" reference was just a deflector shield to save the boy's naughty hide, (which Nequavion told KAIT it basically was). Police officers can't take that chance, however. I do fault them for filing charges, once mom explained that her son had been kicked off the bus repeatedly and was being punished.

I give Borders props -- I'm not sure, as a mom, I'd have enough moxie to enforce a march to school. As a teacher, I applaud her for following up with consequences. I once disciplined a student for kicking kids (and explained to mom why). Later, I saw that child at the grocery store enjoying an ice cream cone. Mom's explained, "he had such a hard day."

Admittedly, Nequavion's walk was long, but that's what made it consequentially perfect. As he said, it was mom's way of teaching him to appreciate the bus (kudos, Nequavion, for recognizing that). If she had chauffeured him to school, what would that have taught him? I can see the wheels turning. "Get in trouble--ride in comfy car. Be good--ride crowded, uncomfortable school bus."

Mom needs a commendation, not jail.

SOURCE




Federal Judge Orders NYC To Reopen Its Schools for the Churches

The churches are going back to meet in the NYC schools! Thursday, Judge Loretta Preska issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the New York City Department of Education from enforcing its policy banning private worship services in the public schools on weeknights and weekends. Although the order lasts only ten days, we expect Judge Preska to issue a preliminary injunction during those ten days that will extend the time longer. At a hearing last Tuesday, Judge Preska indicated her agreement with ADF attorneys that NYC’s policy violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and also excessively entangled the City in religious affairs in violation of the Establishment Clause.

Many of the 60 or so displaced churches have nowhere to meet, so they welcome this reprieve from the federal court. The NYC Department of Education has filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking it to overturn the lower court order and allow NYC to enforce its ban on worship services. ADF attorneys are set to respond to this petition, and we do not expect it to succeed. If necessary, ADF will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Although ADF will persevere in court until the end of this lawsuit, ADF urges the New York Legislature to step in and end this whole matter by passing the legislation overturning NYC’s policy. The proposed law has passed the NY Senate, but the Speaker of the Assembly has held up the bill, voicing concerns that ADF has tried to address with new language for the bill. We are encouraging the Legislature to act because it has full authority to repeal NYC’s policy. Nothing in the court case requires the Legislature to wait or to keep NYC’s policy.

This amazing battle for equal access and religious liberty in New York City continues. Stay tuned!

SOURCE

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

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

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

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19 February, 2012

Sexism is alive and well in Canada

It has even filtered into the hard sciences. The following is the text of a flier recently passed on to me. Even the huge IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) has succumbed to the "new paradigm", apparently

The First Women's Workshop on Communications and Signal Processing

Banff International Research Station
July 13-15, 2012
Registration: $150

The First Women's Workshop on Communications and Signal Processing will be held at the beautiful Banff International Research Station http://www.birs.ca/ July 13-July 1

The workshop will have a poster session, panels and technical presentations from the speakers listed below:

• Sonia Assia, Universite de Quebec
• Pamela Cosman, University of California, San Diego
• Sheila Hemami, Cornell University
• Shalinee Kishore, Lehigh University
• Urbashi Mitra, University of Southern California
• Anna Scaglione, University of California, Davis
• Milica Stojanovic, Northeastern University
• Sirin Tekinay, Consultant, Istanbul, Turkey
• Sarah Kate Wilson, Santa Clara University
• Sally Wood, Santa Clara University

Space is limited at this workshop. Limited travel grants are available. To apply for the workshop and travel grants, please send the following information to

skwilson@scu.edu:

1. A two-page abstract of the poster
2. Your CV
3. Two references
4. Please put Women's Worskhop in the Subject Header

Accommodation at the Banff International Research Station for up to 25 participants at this 2-day workshop is free. The registration fee for the workshop will be 150 U.S. Dollars.





Just what you want to hear: Planned Parenthood works around the clock to hook your kids on sex

Recently, American Life League came out with a six-minute exposé of Planned Parenthood that was so appalling that I would have had a hard time believing it was true had it not been about Planned Parenthood. The video included clips and images from PP educational materials — cartoons and the like — and the gist of the clips was that teens should learn to pleasure themselves and each other as soon as possible.

At the time, I was so disgusted that I couldn’t bring myself to post it. Now, I wish I had. Because of a copyright claim, YouTube pulled the video. No worries, though: You can read more about its contents here. As the smallest of samplings, here’s a screenshot:



The cartoon above speaks for itself.

The point of the ALL’s video was simple: Planned Parenthood has a vested interest in hooking the next generation on sex. They’re in the abortion business. They depend upon unwanted pregnancies to stay in business. They know no unwanted pregnancy occurs without sex, so they encourage sex — albeit “safe” sex.

Over at BuzzFeed, BigRedH mocks the American Life League for its concern, writing, “Yes, this is both real and terrible. How dare Planned Parenthood try to educate people?” But pamphlets, coloring books, mascots, banners, outrageously-shaped lollipops … These aren’t the hallmarks of education. They’re the hallmarks of marketing. Fortunately for Planned Parenthood, the product they’re marketing is the easiest in the world to sell — and, when teens buy it and then have need of other products (a.k.a. contraceptives, STD testing, abortions), Planned Parenthood cashes in.

It sounds extreme, but, in the end, isn’t that the foundational idea of Planned Parenthood — that customers should be able to have sex without consequences, unless those “consequences” are “planned”?

If it all still sounds like a stretch to you, consider Planned Parenthood’s latest effort to meet teens where they are:

Whether they are texting high school students, lecturing in public schools, or coaxing students to their cringeworthy “Teen Information” website, Planned Parenthood relentlessly tries to appeal to the nation’s youth. Their most recent attempt is the newly-launched “HeyPP!” Twitter account. The page is meant to reach teenagers with sexual health information[.]

Sexual health information like, oh, how to have a conversation with your boyfriend about using a condom, how to know when the time is “right” to have sex or how to know if you’re a “cheater” (hint: it depends on your particular relationship’s rules).

The good news is, teens are unimpressed:

Planned Parenthood’s reputation is fading in popularity as quickly as their choice of words. (Another HeyPP tweet reads, “Sounds like a solid plan!” I’m still watching for the word “groovy.”) Planned Parenthood has been exposed for lying, failing to report statutory rape, and not only concealing, but aiding in the sex trafficking of minors.

But it isn’t only Planned Parenthood that has a dwindling reputation among teens. Abortion as a whole is becoming increasingly unpopular with our nation’s youth. Unlike generations before, today’s teens are a part of what can be called the “refrigerator generation.” Unborn children are not an abstract “blob of tissue” to us, as we have grown up seeing ultrasound images of our unborn brothers, sisters, and cousins on our refrigerator doors. Combine this with an increase in pro-life activism, and it makes sense that more of our generation reports to be pro-life than pro-choice.

Abortion and Planned Parenthood are losing popularity among youth, and no excessive use of the words “like” and “totally” is going to change that.

It’s irritating — and a little insulting to the intelligence — that the “experts” at Planned Parenthood really think teens need help figuring out how to follow their natural urges.

But what angers me most about Planned Parenthood’s perpetual attempts to perpetuate knowledge about every last perversion that plagues the human race is that it robs marriage and sex of mystery and romance. If everybody’s business is everybody’s business, then nothing is private. How ironic that the “right to privacy” has made public in a huge way what was once between just two people.

Incidentally, what evidence we have still suggests it’s better when people keep it to themselves. Let’s please bring back the conversational taboo; surely sex was more exciting that way.

SOURCE





Incredulity among British police over politically-correct poetry contest

It's enough to make the hard men of the Sweeney choke on their cigars and double whiskies. Scotland Yard officers have been asked to enter a poetry competition on the theme of ‘gender equality’.

The prize is a chance to have ‘elevenses’ with the Met’s [black] head of diversity Denise Milani, who is renowned in Britain’s biggest police force for her touchy-feely initiatives.

Officers are told their poems must focus on ‘recruitment, retention or progression’ at the Yard, creating a ‘gender-sensitive working environment’ or ‘successfully managing gender-diverse teams’. They must also provide Miss Milani, 54, with insight on the progress made with the ‘Gender Agenda’ from a male or female perspective and suggest a ‘positive vision’ for the Met.

Details of the extraordinary competition were leaked to the Police Inspector blog, prompting a furious reaction from serving officers who accused the Met of wasting taxpayers’ money.

Inspector Gadget, the anonymous author of the blog, wrote: ‘I can categorically say that this is the maddest diversity nonsense we have ever featured. ‘I would like to hear from more female officers to see what they think of this, in between making tea for the lads of course!’

Within minutes of his posting, Inspector Gadget was inundated with examples of possible entries, some of which were obscene.

Another outraged policeman said: ‘Now that this is in the public domain, can a member of the public write a letter of complaint to BHH (Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe) about this scandalous waste of their taxes?’.

On the force’s internal Intranet, officers and civilian staff are urged to ‘get creative’ in the run-up to the event.

Miss Milani, the daughter of West Indian migrants, originally qualified as a teacher and joined the Met in 1999. She is believed to be paid more than £80,000 a year, although Scotland Yard refuses to reveal her exact salary.

Despite a cost-cutting campaign at the Yard, her position as Director of the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate appears safe. The directorate promotes the recognition of the Met’s minority employees – dealing with gender, disability, sexual orientation, age and faith as well as race. It has a total of 36 staff.

In 2008, the Mail revealed how Miss Milani had urged Met staff to ‘celebrate’ the contribution of Roma gipsies to ‘London’s culture and diversity’.

The Yard said: ‘The Metropolitan Police polices one of the most diverse cities in Europe and is the biggest single employer in London. ‘It can only succeed by recognising and responding to the needs of the varied communities and workforce it serves and the DCFD plays a key role by providing specialist knowledge and strategic diversity guidance across the organisation.’

SOURCE





British Councils are given back right to pray at meetings as Eric Pickles signs an order to protect the ancient tradition

Town hall chiefs have been handed the power to hold prayers at the start of council meetings in defiance of the courts. Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles yesterday signed an order giving local authorities the right to maintain the centuries-old tradition.

He stepped in after the High Court last week backed a controversial campaign to abolish acts of worship during town hall meetings.

Christians and politicians reacted with dismay after a judge banned a council in Devon from putting prayers on the formal agenda. Atheist former councillor Clive Bone started the case against Bideford Town Council in July 2010, claiming he had been ‘disadvantaged and embarrassed’ when prayers were recited.

However, Mr Pickles signed a Parliamentary Order yesterday that should render the judgment irrelevant and protect the freedom for councils to pray. He said the Government’s Localism Act allows councils to do anything an individual can unless specifically prohibited by law.

The right to pray can be exercised by major local authorities in England from today, and by parish councils by the end of March.

Mr Pickles said reversing the ‘illiberal ruling’ was a victory for ‘localism over central interference’ and ‘freedom to worship over intolerant secularism’.

Prime Minister David Cameron has urged people to remember that the UK is a Christian nation and Tory Party Chairman Sayeeda Warsi gave a speech at the Vatican this week saying Europe should speak up for Christianity. The Queen also voiced her most outspoken and personal defence of faith this week.

The intervention is also part of a simmering row between politicians and the judiciary over so-called ‘judicial activism’.

Ministers have grown increasingly frustrated by judges over interpreting the law to deliver verdicts which are widely regarded as lacking common sense. Judges are widely accused of seeking to make law themselves in areas like human rights legislation.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



18 February, 2012

Airline forced to scrap controversial 'sexist' ads



The U.K's budget airline Ryanair has been forced to scrap a controversial advertising campaign featuring scantily-clad models for being "sexist".

Sky New reports that the promotion, which ran last November in British newspapers with the slogan "Red Hot Fares & Crew", was yanked by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)--U.K.'s independent advertising consumer watchdog -- after it sparked widespread complaints.

The ASA said one image, entitled "Ornella February", which showed a model pulling down the top of her pants with a thumb, was particularly "sexually suggestive".

Ryanair said the promotion, which took images from its 2012 cabin crew charity calendar, and says the pictures were not sexist because staff had volunteered to produce the images. It said the ad was to help "promote" the charity calendar and that it did not consider the pictures to "unsuitable for public display."

The ASA didn't agree, saying that "most readers would interpret these images, in conjunction with the text "Red Hot Fares & Crew!!!" and the names of the women, as linking female cabin crew with sexually suggestive behavior," says Sky.

Complaints included some from the airline's staff . One person named Ghada reportedly started an online campaign to ban the ads, promoting thousands of complaints in the U.K.. In November when she launched the campaign she wrote: "My work colleagues, many of whom are male, work hard with me to ensure the safety of our passengers. Safety is our number-one priority, not the brand of our underwear."

The advertisement have now been banned by the ASA.

SOURCE






The Church is under-appreciated says the Queen

The Queen has delivered a staunch and strongly-worded defence of the Church and religion in the face of a growing divide between faith and secularism.

In a timely address to leaders of Britain's nine main religions at Lambeth Palace, London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, she highlighted the importance of faith in society and the "critical guidance" it offered in life.

"The concept of our established Church is occasionally misunderstood and, I believe, commonly under-appreciated," she said. "Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country."

The monarch, speaking at the first public event to mark her Diamond Jubilee, said that Church was "woven into the fabric of this country" and had helped to build a better society. It has "created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely", she added.

The Queen's words were considered a rare intervention in the war of words between critics of the Church and faith communities.

It follows a warning issued by Baroness Warsi, chairman of the Conservative Party, who said yesterday that British society was under threat from a rising tide of "militant secularisation" reminiscent of "totalitarian regimes".

In an article for the Daily Telegraph, the Cabinet Office minister said that to create a “more just society” Britons must “feel stronger in their religious identities”.

Last week, the High Court ruled that local councils could not hold prayers during meetings. There have also been recent cases of public sector workers being banned from displaying Christian symbols at work.

The Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, had earlier met leaders of the eight non-Christian religions; the Baha'i, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Jewish, Muslim, and Zoroastrian; who each presented her with a treasured object important to their faith.

In an address in the palace's Guard Room, she said: "Our religions provide critical guidance for the way we live our lives and for the way in which we treat each other. "Here at Lambeth Palace we should remind ourselves of the significant position of the Church of England in our nation's life."

She said the occasion marked an opportunity to reflect on the importance of faith in "creating and sustaining communities" across Britain. "Faith plays a key role in the identity of many millions of people, providing not only a system of belief but also a sense of belonging," she added.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, paid tribute to the Queen's "personal commitment" to her office as a call from God which he said was "at the heart of her understanding of her role".
She has effectively shown that "being religious is not eccentric or abnormal", he said.

"The personal faith to which you have so regularly alluded entails the conviction of a calling from God to do what you do and to be what you are; it also means a full understanding of what makes communities work," he said.

A report conducted for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (UK) suggested that almost three quarters (74 per cent) of Christians polled agreed that religion should not influence public policy, while only about one in eight (12 per cent) thought it should.

SOURCE





No hiding the number of knees under British government desks

Thatcher’s privatisations certainly reduced the size of the state payroll, in terms of car workers, coal miners and steel-makers. But she failed to get to grips with the growing recruitment drive in local government and the rise of the quangocracy, which began in the early-to-mid-Eighties.

I was reminded of this yesterday, when the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude announced that, thanks to a successful programme of economies, the Civil Service is now at its smallest since World War II.

That’s great news, on the face of it. But it depends what you mean by ‘civil service’. Maude was referring to those directly working for the government departments we collectively call Whitehall.

The reality is that there are now more people than ever on the public payroll, not including the six million or so on assorted out-of-work benefits, which is twice the number of the headline unemployment rate in the ‘heartless’ 1980s.

At least all those car workers, steel workers and coal miners actually produced something, when they weren’t on strike, even if it was uneconomic. Too many of today’s ‘public service’ staff produce absolutely nothing of any value.

They are variously engaged in utterly superfluous out-reaching, monitoring, regulating, co-ordinating, box-ticking, witch-hunting, inspecting, consulting, licensing, twinning, punishing, celebrating diversity and generally interfering in every aspect of our daily lives.

Yet at the same time genuine basic services like emptying dustbins and teaching children to read and write have deteriorated hideously.

Labour spectacularly reversed Thatcher’s efforts to shrink the State and left behind a massive debt and deficit. Public spending now accounts for almost half of everything we earn as a country — up over the past 30 years from £128 billion a year to a projected £722 billion in 2013. Even allowing for inflation, that is a grotesque increase.

Today, we don’t have a nationalised steel industry, but Gordon Brown did nationalise the banks. Network Rail, as it likes to be called these days, is back in public ownership and subsidies to the railways are far higher than they ever were in the bad old days of British Rail.

I don’t know about the Civil Service, but we’ve certainly got the smallest armed forces since World War II.

And the public sector still seems to be run with all the incompetence, inefficiency and flagrant contempt for taxpayers’ money which was the hallmark of British Steel under Sir Charles English Hyde Villiers MC, aka Mr Pastry.

SOURCE





Deliberate Muslim propaganda at Australian public broadcaster

by Senator Helen Kroger

Senator Helen Kroger has today asked questions of Mr Michael Ebeid, Managing Director of the Special Broadcast Service (SBS) in Senate Estimates about the controversial screening of the documentary The Promise.

As a result of questions by Senator Kroger, Mr Ebeid revealed that SBS entered into a pre-sale arrangement with the producers of The Promise in full knowledge that the subject matter was going to be controversial.

Questions by Senator Kroger also revealed that when SBS received a series of complaints about the documentary, an internal investigation was initiated to determine if the documentary would be aired. A decision was taken by the review board, which included Mr Ebeid, that SBS would go ahead with the screening.

“What is most concerning about the decision to air The Promise is that SBS appears to have put a business decision ahead of independent assessments which determined that it was offensive to the Jewish community,” Senator Kroger said. “Equally concerning was Mr Ebeid‟s assertion that, with hindsight, he would make the same decision to put the program to air.”

“This documentary was portrayed as fact and any suggestion that it is merely fiction is even more offensive and is an overt slap in the face to the Jewish community.”

“Any suggestion that the Jewish community is "manipulative‟ and "self interested‟, as portrayed in The Promise, is shameful. This documentary fails to portray the continuing valuable and constructive contribution that the Jewish community makes in Australia.”

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



17 February, 2012

The saving power of the Bible

Mike Adams, who writes below, is a man of profound faith and I have been an atheist for roughly 50 years -- so why do I reproduce his column below? It is because I still love my Bible nearly as much as I did in my Christian youth. I still read it with pleasure, study it, debate it and find great wisdom in it. I see it as the distilled wisdom of a great people, not as the wisdom of God, but I have nonetheless never left it and it has never left me. Its words run through my head often.

I have never had the sort of personal crises Mike describes below but that is perhaps because I was always guided by that great wisdom. I never rejected it and so never had to rediscover it. I knew the teachings and have always found that when I followed them I got a blessing -- usually very rapidly. My favourite text is from Ecclesiastes 11:1. "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days". Ask your pastor or Rebbe what it means. My old and worn Bible falls open at Ecclesiastes these days. So I join with Mike in extolling the wisdom and power of that ancient Jewish book. And if you see it as God's book, that may help you even more.

One extra blessing that I get is that my knowledge of, and past absorption in, Protestant Christian teachings enables me to understand Bach better. Bach's music is among the greatest of classical music but he was a devout Lutheran and his faith suffuses his work. So as I also understand German, I listen to his cantatas with complete understanding on every level. As I write this I am listening to the great but very sombre cantata "Ich habe genug". It is one of my favourites but its words would seem completely mad to someone who did not know and understand the faith behind it -- JR

Dear Mike:

It was good seeing you the other day at lunch. I meant to share a story with you but the room was too crowded and the story is too long. So I write to you today sharing something that will surely lift your spirits just the way you lifted mine when I first heard you speak in May of 2007.

My first visit to your church came during the worst time in all of my life. I was struck with personal tragedy in January of that year. That was followed by another tragedy in February, one in March, one in April, and one in May. Things would settle down in July but had I waited until then to visit your church I might not be writing you today. I’m still surprised that my heart or head did not just explode during all of the turmoil in that tragic time of my life.

On my first visit to your church, I listened intently to your sermon on the first letter of John in the New Testament. It was moving – so much so that I made it the subject of a column called “How to Read the New Testament.” Looking back, I am not sure I still agree with everything I wrote in that column. But I did and still do agree with the manner in which you said we should read that letter. You said it should be read like a love letter written just for the reader by someone who is madly in love with him (or her).

Of course, one does not read the entire Bible the way you suggested we read the first letter of John. But your advice was specific to that book. So I walked right out of your sermon and straight over to Barnes and Noble. I bought the ESV translation of the Bible and started reading it over lunch. I ended up reading that first letter of John every day over the course of the next week. Since I wrote a column about it you know how beneficial I found your advice to be.

In the nearly five years since I wrote the column, I have given it very little thought. Then, just the other day, a fellow wrote asking for a link to the column. He wanted to use it in his Sunday school class. Oddly, I received a second email about the column just 24 hours later.

The second of the two letters was far more dramatic and memorable than the first. In it, a man wrote a long and painful account of a series of tragedies in his personal and professional life. I would not have kept reading it had I not seen the reference to the aforementioned column as I glanced casually over the text. It was only the coincidence of getting two emails two days in a row (on the same very old column) that kept me reading.

Eventually, I reached a portion of the email in which my reader said “thoughts of suicide entered my mind each day – every day. Earlier this year, the pain became so intense that I knew that I would either have to find my way back to Christ, or I would have to die.” That was alarming but I kept on reading. I’m glad I did.

The reader continued, “I would have to return to His Word. However, the Bible seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and I could neither lift it nor open it. Exacerbating this situation was the fact that I realized that I was a coward; I was afraid because the world has become increasingly and vehemently hostile to Christians and Christianity. I knew that reaffirming and declaring faith in Christ would make me a target of the same hatred, ridicule, and scorn I had heaped on others, and I wasn’t ready for it.”

My reader then informed me that, in the midst of his depression, on the brink of suicide, he came across a column I had written. For some reason, he thought that something I said somehow took courage. So he started working backwards through my column archive. Eventually, he read the column referencing 1 John and your sermon that had inspired it. He ended his letter saying that was the very day he found the strength to pick up his Bible and start his journey in the Word anew.

He continued reading his Bible every day. The Book that once “seemed to weigh a thousand pounds” became light as a feather. As he continued to read, his thoughts of suicide disappeared. They were replaced with a burning desire to live again and to walk in the light of forgiveness.

As I read that man’s letter, I realized that it had been a very long time since I told you what your words did for me in my darkest hour. I hope you will forgive me as I am still seeing what those words have done - not just for me, but through me. I am beginning to understand what John meant when he said “What we will be has not yet appeared.”

The ripple effect that flows from our words and from our actions extends far beyond the reach of human perception. It will not be fully revealed until we reach the other side. That is why we need the Word to lift us out of our desperation and move us beyond our present circumstances. It helps reveal the only Light that can lead us out of darkness.

SOURCE






In conformist Britain, anything unusual is assumed to be illegal

Supermarket manager bans man for buying gallons of vegetable oil to power his delivery van claiming it is 'illegal'. I had similar experiences of British rigidity in Britain back in the '70s, as you can read here. No wonder many people from Britain and other Northern European countries migrate to easygoing Australia to get away from all the social rigidities and expectations -- JR

A grocer claims supermarket staff banned him from his local store after he bought vegetable oil to use as fuel in his vehicle. Chris Waites says managers at his local Tesco in Didcot, Oxfordshire, told him it was illegal for him to buy vegetable oil and use it as fuel in his delivery van.

He claims the ban came after he purchased six five-litre bottles of vegetable oil to fill up the van he uses for his grocery business. The transit van has been adapted to run on vegetable oil. It is not thought to be illegal to purchase vegetable oil to be used as bio fuel.

Mr Waites said he clashed with staff at the store when he bought the bottles of oil and told them what he was using it for.

Tesco said it was investigating the matter and stressed that it does not prevent customers from buying products.

He said when he returned to the supermarket on Saturday to buy other items, he was told he was no longer welcome because using vegetable oil to run a vehicle was a criminal activity. He said: 'A member of staff told me in front of lots of other customers that I was no longer welcome at the store because I had been using vegetable oil illegally for my van.

'Using vegetable oil to run a vehicle is not illegal and it was embarrassing to be branded a criminal in this way in front of lots of other shoppers.

'Normally we get given the vegetable oil free from pubs and restaurants but on this occasion I’d gone to Tesco.

'We deliver groceries to people in rural areas but I can’t imagine Tesco are trying to stop me from using my van because they feel threatened by the competition.'

Mr Waites said he had been a customer at the store for seven years and he was not aware of any other reason why he was being banned.

He added: 'The day before I bought the oil I went to customer services because the store had overcharged me for a pack of PG Tips. I got a refund but that was all sorted out and I can’t believe Tesco are being so petty.'

Mr Waites, who lives with wife Miriam, 27, said his 2.5-litre Ford Transit van had been adapted to run on vegetable oil. He added: 'I have been running the van this way for about six years and it’s perfectly legal. The Government actually gives you a tax-free allowance every year if you use vegetable oil. We cover about 50 miles a day travelling around South Oxfordshire and use about 2,300 litres a year.

'A litre of diesel now costs over £1.40 at the pumps whereas a litre of vegetable oil costs about 90p.'

In recent years companies have provided drivers with a source of greener, cheaper motoring by turning oil used for frying chips into biodiesel. After collecting drums of used oil from cafes and takeaways, firms refine the liquid into a fuel suitable for most diesel engines.

But specially adapted engines, like the one in Mr Waites’s van, can run on unrefined vegetable oil.

Biodiesel emits much less unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and other harmful substances, and does not produce the noxious black smoke associated with mineral diesel. However, biodiesel is not a lover of cold mornings and may cause start-up problems at very low temperatures.

Tesco spokesman David Nieberg said: 'Our stores are there to serve customers, not prevent them from shopping. 'We’d like to stress we do not ban customers for simply buying vegetable oil – even if it is to put in a vehicle. We are speaking to Mr Waites to resolve the issue.'

SOURCE





BBC wins Supreme Court battle after spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of licence fee payers' money to keep report on its 'biased' journalism a secret

Leftism can't stand the light of day. But the secrecy itself tells us most of what they are hiding

The BBC has been accused of a cover-up after spending almost £350,000 on a legal battle to suppress an internal report about bias in its Middle East coverage. A seven-year campaign to gain access to the 2004 document, which examined the corporation’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ended in defeat yesterday after the Supreme Court ruled it could remain secret.

Lawyer Steven Sugar, who passed away last year, made a Freedom of Information request in 2005 for disclosure of the 20,000-word Balen Report. But the corporation argued it was exempt from revealing information it held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature’.

After years of courtroom battles and Mr Sugar’s death, his widow Fiona Paveley continued on his behalf. Her lawyer, Michael Levey, said the family were ‘considering their options’ after the Supreme Court dismissed the latest appeal after ruling the report was ‘outside the scope’ of the FoI Act.

By September 2010, the BBC had spent £270,000 on the case, but senior insiders admitted this had now increased to as much as £350,000.

The broadcaster’s reluctance to reveal the details of the dossier – which was compiled by Malcolm Balen, a senior journalist and editorial adviser at the BBC – has led to speculation that it was highly critical. Lord Janner of Braunstone, chairman of the Britain Israel Parliamentary Group, said last night: ‘What have they got to hide?’

Tory MP Mike Freer, vice-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, added: ‘This is the worst of all outcomes. ‘It fuels suspicion they have got something to hide.’

A spokesman for the BBC insisted it did not have anything to hide about its Middle East coverage but had pursued the case to defend its right to protect information about its journalism. He added: ‘We welcome the Supreme Court’s judgment, which will ensure that the BBC is afforded the space to conduct its journalistic activities freely.

‘Independent journalism requires honest and open internal debate free from external pressures. This ruling enables us to continue to do that.’

SOURCE





Why Whitney Houston Died

The media have no bleepin' clue how to cover the death of Whitney Houston. That's because she was slowly dying for years and many in the press simply averted their eyes.

It was ultra-disturbing that a beautiful woman blessed with an extraordinary singing voice chose a self-destructive path in full view of the world. I mean, here is a person who signed a $100 million recording contract, actually sold 170 million albums and commanded high six figures to deliver a 90-minute concert. Houston was a genuine international star, and yet she often was seen in public disheveled and confused, her substance addiction apparent. The media simply did not know what to say.

We live in a time in which addiction is categorized as a disease, and to do what Nancy Reagan once did and urge people to reject narcotics is considered uncool. How many young performers do we see doing public service announcements warning children to avoid intoxication? Right now, I can't think of one.

The national media pride themselves on being non-judgmental unless you are against abortion. Then you are dismissed as "anti-woman" or as a religious zealot. But in the arena of personal behavior, there's an excuse for just about every nonviolent activity and bad decision.

There is no question that some of us have a history of addiction in our families. There are folks who can use drugs casually and avoid dependence, but they are the exception. Once a person decides to dabble in cocaine, or opiates such as heroin and OxyContin, they are putting themselves at grave risk. And they know it. There are legions of famous people who wound up dead just like Houston. From Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson, the signposts are impossible to miss. No matter how rich and powerful you are, drugs can and will destroy you.

The current medical marijuana ruse is a great example of a society walking away from a responsible position. Ask any drug rehab counselor, and he or she will tell you that pot often leads a person to harder drug use and is mentally addictive itself. Yes, most people can function while stoned. But the more you alter your mind the more your perspective on life changes. Believe me, I know people who get stoned or drunk every day. They become incredibly desensitized to those around them.

On the kid front, the situation is dire. Once a child enters the world of intoxication, their childhood is gone. Presto, they are jaded. That's how dangerous drugs and alcohol are to immature minds. Society has an obligation to protect its children, not to tacitly accept or embrace mind-altering agents such as marijuana.

Houston, however, was an adult who made a decision to embrace the drug life. Reports say she tried to rehabilitate herself a few times, but you know how that goes. Once a person enters the hell of addiction, there is no easy way out.

And that's how the Whitney Houston story should be covered. As a cautionary tale. Another life vanquished by substance abuse.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



16 February, 2012

How political correctness is ruining Britain's police

As corrupt cop Ali Dizaei is finally jailed, an ex-colleague says the Met has been paralysed by fears of being branded racist

The Metropolitan Police continues to stumble from one self-inflicted crisis to another, weakening its ability to fight genuine crime. It is a force that for too long has been gripped by a dangerous cocktail of poor leadership, politically correct dogma, warped priorities and tactical incompetence.

Those flaws have been graphically illustrated by the appalling case of Ali Dizaei, the notoriously corrupt Iranian-born officer who was this week sent back to jail for a second time after his conviction for perverting the course of justice.

Only an organisation obsessed with the creed of diversity and lacking in moral integrity would have allowed a swaggering, criminal bully like Dizaei to rise up its hierarchy and gain a senior position. He should have been drummed out long ago, not constantly rewarded with promotion.

But Dizaei is a symbol of the rot within the top ranks of the Met. Too many senior officers seem to have forgotten that their central duty is to protect the law-abiding British public.
Selfish Instead of taking tough decisions — like challenging Dizaei — they indulge in politicised manoeuvres designed to protect their own backs and further their own careers.

The high command of the Met inhabits a culture where cowardice is dressed up as pragmatism, where a talent for spouting jargon trumps determination to take on the criminals.

The biggest losers from this approach are not just ordinary decent British citizens, but also the constables out on the streets, often doing a heroic, selfless job only to be undermined by their selfish, careerist superiors. It is no exaggeration to say that the Met frontline are lions led by vacillating donkeys.

As a former detective chief superintendent at the Met myself, I have been appalled by the Dizaei saga.

I was actually the borough commander in West London at the time when, in July 2008, he tried to frame an innocent Iraqi businessman, Waad al-Baghdadi, with whom he was engaged in a bitter feud over money. The incident ultimately led to two criminal trials and Dizaei’s conviction this week.

But from the moment Dizaei hauled Mr al-Baghdadi into Hammersmith police station on charges of assault, I had the severest doubts about his tale. This was not just because of the unconvincing nature of his story that al-Baghdadi had attacked him, which turned out to be a pack of lies, but also because of Dizaei’s appalling record of dishonesty, corruption and abuse of office.

Like almost everyone else in the Met, I had always known that he was a wrong ’un. On a superficial level, he could be charming and personable, but his easy manner barely disguised his dark side.

He was a figure of epic venality, ambition and ruthlessness, his entire career geared towards furthering his own interests, regardless of the legality or probity of his methods.

When he joined the Met as a superintendent in 1999, former colleagues in the Thames Valley Police, where he was an officer for more than a decade, warned us to beware, telling us of his enthusiasm for playing the race card to achieve his ends.

But in a climate of hysteria over accusations of ‘institutionalised racism’, the Met’s top brass were desperate to recruit more ethnic minority senior officers.

The warnings from Thames Valley Police were grimly fulfilled. Dizaei was a master at using fears about racism to thwart any challenge to his increasingly aggressive, self-serving conduct. The National Black Police Association, of which Dizaei was president, was his chosen instrument with which to bully and intimidate the Met’s hierarchy. He became a law unto himself. The Met’s terror of taking any action against him made him feel even more invincible.

Even the Independent Police Complaints Commission, normally all too keen on enforcing the politically correct code, urged the Met to discipline Dizaei — but top commanders were too pusillanimous to do so. Most had prospered by avoiding tough decisions. They were not going to risk all by taking on a formidable adversary who loved to smear his critics as racists.

Thanks to their lack of courage, he got away with behaviour that would have led to the sacking of any other Met employee.

So he gained a PhD with a thesis attacking the Met on racism, while in 2007 he wrote an autobiographical book called Not One Of Us, which contained severe criticism of the Met.

Yet instead of being sacked for gross disloyalty, he was promoted. Can you imagine any successful company that would behave in such a pathetic manner towards a senior member of staff making money out of trashing the firm’s reputation?

Fuelled by his invulnerability, Dizaei’s ego was legendary among the rank-and-file. On one occasion he alleged that two constables had damaged his private car. On investigation, it turned out that the damage was inflicted by one of his many mistresses.

Any other officer behaving in that way would have been disciplined or sacked, especially because he had shown such a contemptible lack of respect towards the two constables.

But nothing happened to Dizaei, protected as he was by the shield of spurious anti-racism. On another occasion, he drove into the station and parked so carelessly that he blocked the exit of the emergency response vehicles. Almost immediately, the emergency vehicle was needed.

‘Can you move your car?’ called out the officers, needing to rush to the scene of the incident. ‘You move it,’ replied Dizaei, throwing them the keys and marching brazenly inside.

That was the arrogance of the man. He had no sense of public service, not a shred of decency. He was a brute in uniform, who once threatened to kill the mother of one of his mistresses ‘like a dog’.

But Dizaei was clever enough to exploit the political pressures on the Met for more than a decade.

And, of course, political correctness was to blame for the pusillanimous way the rampaging gangs of looters and vandals — many from ethnic minorities — were dealt with during the riots last summer.

Paralysed by political correctness and accusations of racism, terrified of being accountable for controversial decisions over public order, the Met’s senior officers allowed the mob to control the streets for five days before launching a crackdown.

This is not the police force that the public deserves.

The one great hope is that the Met has a new Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, who made his name fighting crime on Liverpool’s tough streets. Hogan-Howe’s virtues are that he does not crave adulation from the politicians, always a sign of good judgment, and that he has real experience of operational requirements.

Far too many senior officers in the Met have reached the top without such a background. In fact, the avoidance of tough, frontline responsibilities is often the hallmark of a modern successful career in the Met.

The arrival of Hogan-Howe, combined with the welcome downfall of Ali Dizaei, may put an end to this pattern. And, finally, policing will be governed by the needs of the public instead of politics.

SOURCE





Women prisoners should be allowed out to visit their children, British judge rules

Female prisoners should be allowed temporary release from jail to visit their children, a High Court judge has ruled.

Kenneth Clarke was wrong to try to stop two women prisoners being allowed time out of prison to see their children, said Mrs Justice Lang. She said the Justice Secretary misinterpreted policy and acted in a way which was incompatible with human rights legislation when denying two women 'childcare resettlement leave’.

Mr Clarke 'fettered his discretion’ by applying a blanket policy without considering individual circumstances of prisoners, the judge added. She ruled against Mr Clarke at a High Court hearing in London after two women prisoners challenged decisions not to allow them to take the leave.

She ordered that decisions taken about the two women, who were not identified, must be reconsidered. Lawyers representing Mr Clarke were given seven days to consider an appeal application.

Childcare resettlement leave is a 'type of temporary licence’ available to prisoners who had sole caring responsibility for a child under 16. It enabled prisoners to spend up to three days - plus nights - at home providing certain conditions are met.

The judge pointed out that both men and women prisoners are eligible but the judicial review challenge before her focused exclusively on the position of female prisoners.

The Justice Secretary was entitled to direct prison governors on relevant factors to consider in accordance with rules - although in practice governors take decisions on his behalf, she said.

Mrs Justice Lang heard legal argument from lawyers representing the two women and Mr Clarke at a hearing last month.

The judge said, in a written ruling handed down yesterday: 'In my judgment, the Secretary of State acted unlawfully when reviewing and applying his policy on child resettlement leave.' She said Mr Clarke misinterpreted policy by taking the view that child resettlement leave was only ever intended to be available to prisoners close to release.

He had 'failed to have regard' to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights - which enshrines a right to respect for private and family life - and acted in a way which was incompatible with Article 8 and with the Human Rights Act.

The judge said Mr Clarke had also fettered his discretion by applying a blanket policy without considering individual circumstances of prisoners. She said she did not consider it was 'unduly onerous' for prison bosses to have proper regard for individual applications for child resettlement leave.

The judge said Mr Clarke should reconsider his decisions on the two women within six weeks but she would consider granting him leave to appeal against her ruling.

Mrs Justice Lang gave details about the two women who mounted the legal challenge but did not identify them. The judge said one woman was given a 10-year sentence after being convicted of conspiring to import cocaine and was a prisoner at Downview jail in Sutton, Surrey. She was the sole carer of three children aged between four and 13, said the judge.

The second woman had been given a 14-year sentence after being convicted of importing cocaine and was also at Downview. She was the sole carer of her 15-year-old daughter, said the judge.

SOURCE





For once, Richard Dawkins is lost for words

Atheists’ arrogance is their Achilles’ heel, as a cringemaking radio performance has proved

By Stephen Pollard

Which of us hasn’t groaned when the Rev Giles Fraser, former canon of St Paul’s, pops up with his Thought for the Day on Radio 4? Dr Fraser is the archetypal 21st-century vicar, as predictably Lefty as he is drearily on-trend. That “former” prefix is because, you’ll recall, he resigned after welcoming the Occupy protesters to his cathedral. And since leaving St Paul’s he has, in a form of caricature made flesh, become a Guardian leader writer. But I take it all back. Giles Fraser, you are now my hero.

In a discussion on the Today programme yesterday, Dr Fraser skewered the atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins so fabulously, so stylishly, and so thoroughly that anti-religion’s high priest was reduced to incoherent mumbling and spluttering.

The two men were debating some new figures produced by Prof Dawkins’s think tank, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. (A typical Dawkins touch: not just any old Foundation for Reason and Science but the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.) The statistics purport to show that most people who identify themselves as Christian turn out, when questioned on what they actually think, to be “overwhelmingly secular in their attitudes on issues ranging from gay rights to religion in public life”. Dawkins’s conclusion is that these self-identified Christians are “not really Christian at all”.

If you were trying to come up with a definition of misplaced intellectual arrogance, you could not do better than having the planet’s most famous atheist issuing diktats on who does and doesn’t count as a proper Christian. Prof Dawkins then announced, triumphantly, that an “astonishing number [of Christians] couldn’t identify the first book in the New Testament”.

The transcript of the next minute or so only hints at how cringingly, embarrassingly bad it was for Dawkins.

Fraser: Richard, if I said to you what is the full title of The Origin Of Species, I’m sure you could tell me that.

Dawkins: Yes I could.

Fraser: Go on then.

Dawkins: On the Origin of Species…Uh…With, oh, God, On the Origin of Species. There is a sub-title with respect to the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.

It was a golden minute of radio. But as well as being hilarious, it was hugely symbolic. In The Daily Telegraph yesterday, Baroness Warsi highlighted the militant secularism on the march in Britain. But as Dr Fraser revealed, the atheist army is led by an embarrassingly feeble general. The arrogance and intolerance of the atheists, exemplified by Prof Dawkins, is their Achilles’ heel.

Last week’s court decision to ban prayers at the start of council meetings is all of a piece. The judge may or may not have got the law right – there will almost certainly be an appeal. But it is the National Secular Society which, in taking its case to court to have its views imposed on the rest of us, is responsible for the ban on Christians praying.

As a Jewish schoolboy, I had to sit through Christian prayers at the end of every assembly. It would not have occurred to me or any other Jew I knew that we should try to stop them praying in front of us. We were a small minority at a school with a large majority of Christians. I simply sat silently, my mind wandering off to other things.

The militant secularists, however, have only one modus operandi – attack. Respect for others’ views seems to be entirely missing from their moral calculus.

They entirely miss the irony of their position. Religious leaders who focus solely on a sectarian appeal to their own followers, and who seek to raise their own standing by diminishing the views of others, end up on the margins of serious debate. And as their noise drowns out the quieter, less confrontational majority, they act against their own religion’s interest.

We all hear about Muslim leaders issuing fatwas against homosexuals, preaching hate and the extermination of the Jews. But who hears of an Imam who is a credit to their religion?

And yet the extremists are merely a flipside of the atheists. Their actions, too, are entirely negative, aimed at winning plaudits from fellow atheists and in the process poisoning the rest of society against them. We wait in vain for a high-profile atheist to acknowledge that we can all learn from some religious leaders, even if we do not share their faith. The past two Chief Rabbis have shown the benefits of a more open approach, reaching beyond one’s own followers. Lord Jakobovits and Lord Sacks have been feted far outside the Jewish community. Neither were ennobled because they were Chief Rabbi; none of their predecessors had been so honoured. Their elevation to the Upper House was because many gentiles regarded them as figures who had something exceptional to contribute to public life. Where is that contribution from atheists? We’ve had nothing but negativity from Richard Dawkins. And he is now, after yesterday’s intellectual savaging, a busted flush.

SOURCE





Young people today are late to the wedding, but want marriage

When Amy Monticello and Jason Tucker got married, it wasn't the passionate act of two people who'd fallen madly in love. It was a far less romantic mix of love, legal protections, and health insurance. They met in graduate school, dated for a while, and began staying over at each other's apartments.

"We were spending so much time together it just seemed silly to pay two rents," says Ms. Monticello. So the two moved in together in 2006, but she says she was wary: "I think I saw living together as a test run, in a way."

Four years later Monticello, age 29, and Mr. Tucker, 30 – both writers who teach at Ithaca Col­lege, in Ithaca, N.Y. – chose to marry because it gave their relationship legal certainty and other benefits, like next-of-kin status, community property protection, and the ability to share health insurance.

Much of Monticello's ambivalence about marriage, she says, is the result of her childhood in the 1980s and '90s spent watching her parents and their friends contribute to the highest divorce rates in US history.

That ambivalence is also seen in the whole new world of courtship created by her generation – Millennials or Generation Y generally includes those born between 1980 and 2000. This is the first generation to come of age with social media, instant – even constant – Internet and phone connection, and relaxed pressures to marry early. It is responsible for terms like "hooking up" (nonrelationships known to previous generations as one-night stands) and "friends with benefits" (a sexual relationship without emotional involvement).

While Millennial courtship rituals are distinctly different from those of previous generations, say those who study the scene, survey after survey indicates that Millennials do want to be married, they do want the house in the suburbs and the kids.

But they also want to be careful – they are postponing marriage longer than any generation before them.

"Millennials believe in marriage and lifelong commitment but are also more relaxed about sex, dating, and living together" than their Generation X and boomer parents, says Pamela Smock, a professor of sociology and director of the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

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. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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



15 February, 2012

Atheists to Hold Massive ‘Woodstock for Non-Belief’ in Washington D.C.‏

A bit odd to have a rally about what you are not. How would it go if whites held a rally to celebrate not being black? This seems just as hate-motivated

Traditionally, atheists have taken on the faith community through limited legal battles and individual complaints. But as the power of social media and communicative technologies has developed, non-believers have become increasingly organized. As they collaborate through various projects, they’re realizing the power they have as a collective. In fact, on March 24, 2012, they’re planning the “Reason Rally” — a massive event that American Atheists President David Silverman has dubbed a “Woodstock for non-belief.”

The event, which will symbolically be held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is being called ”the largest secular event ever,” as non-believers from across America are being encouraged to come and take part in the “historical” gathering. On the event’s web site, its purpose is explained in detail:

The Reason Rally is a movement-wide event sponsored by the country’s major secular organizations. The intent is to unify, energize, and embolden secular people nationwide, while dispelling the negative opinions held by so much of American society… and having a damn good time doing it! It will be the largest secular event in world history. There will be music, comedy, great speakers, and lots of fun… and it’s free! [...]

Across America, in every city, every town, and every school, secularism is on the rise. Whether people call themselves atheists, agnostics, secular Humanists, or any of the other terms used to describe their god-free lifestyle, secularism is coming out of the closet. According to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey…the percentage of people with no religious affiliation grew in all fifty states. The purpose of this particular rally will be to advance secularism (in the broadest sense of the word) in society.

So, it seems America’s atheist population is on a mission: To grow its numbers, while changing the perceptions the majority of the public public often holds against it. With numbers that appear to be growing, non-believers are looking to form the same cohesiveness they see among America’s faithful.

Musicians and speakers will present and perform at the “Reason Rally.” Among those listed on the event’s web site are evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers (whom the Blaze has interacted with in the past), Freedom From Religion Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor and Jessica Ahlquist (the 16-year-old girl behind the prayer mural ban in Rhode Island).

SOURCE






Arrested for being WHITE? Grandfather who was repeatedly stopped and cuffed for walking with his black granddaughter



Scott Henson is a self-described Texas redneck, white and middle-aged. His granddaughter Ty -- the five-year-old daughter of his goddaughter -- is black and Mr Henson often finds himself babysitting her.

And that pairing has apparently drawn the suspicion of police in Mr Henson's hometown of Austin, Texas. Twice in three years, he has been swarmed by officers and questioned aggressively -- for no other reason than being a white man walking down the sidewalk with a little black girl, he says.

On his blog Grits for Breakfast, Mr Henson says he is the victim of 'babysitting while white' -- over-zealous racial profiling by police who are suspicious of anything out of the ordinary.

On Friday, the most recent run-in with cops, he was handcuffed and detained and separated from his terrified granddaughter by officers who claimed they had received an anonymous report of a white man kidnapping a black girl.

In November 2008, while police cordoned off parts of Austin searching for two suspected killers, Mr Henson said he received similar treatment while walking home from the park.

In each encounter, Mr Henson said he was terse with officers and reluctant to give information because he was insulted that he was being stopped and questioned for being with a little girl of a different race. He maintains he had no obligation to cooperate.

But he says the subsequent police response was rude, incompetent and terrifying to his young granddaughter.

As Mr Henson, a political consultant and retired journalist who runs a popular blog about the criminal justice system in Texas, was walking home from a roller rink Friday night with his granddaughter, he was swarmed by several police squad cars.
Scott Henson and Ty

Adopted family: Ty is the daughter of Scott Henson's goddaughter -- a woman who came to live with Mr Henson and his wife when she was a child

He had been approached by a deputy constable earlier who questioned what he was doing with the little girl. The officer claimed she had received a report of a white man kidnapping a black child.

When more police arrived, they grabbed Mr Henson, he says, and jerked his armed behind him and handcuffed him.

'Ty edged up the hill away from the officers, crying. One of them called out in a comforting tone that they weren't there to hurt her, but another officer blew up any good will that might have garnered by brusquely snatching her up and scuttling her off to the back seat of one of the police cars,' he writes.

Meanwhile, he says, the officers stalled and refused to call his wife and the other people whose phone numbers he gave to verify his relationship with the little girl.

Before he was released by the officers, without apologies, Mr Henson said 10 squad cars encircled the bicycle path he was walking, a few blocks from his house.

Ultimately, neither encounter with police has left a lasting impact on his life, he says. But he fears officers' ham-fisted approach has had a bigger impact on little Ty.

'I'd like her to view police as people she can trust instead of threats to her and her family, but it's possible I live in the wrong neighborhood for that.,' he wrote.

SOURCE





Britain's Stasi and a sinister assault on a free Press

By Richard Littlejohn

Squads of up to 20 police officers raid suburban houses at six o’clock in the morning. In related operations, dozens more detectives rip out car doors, tear up floorboards and search through underwear drawers and beneath mattresses, terrifying innocent women and children.

Men are arrested just as they are about to take their families to the countryside on half-term holidays. Suspects are carted off to police stations where they are interrogated for hours. Bottles of water and bananas are confiscated before they are thrown in the cells. The officers involved say they are only obeying orders.

If you think this sounds like Nazi Germany or Communist East Berlin under the Stasi, you’d be dead right. But this is Britain 2012 and the Gestapo tactics are being used by police investigating alleged illegal practices by journalists working for News International.

Scotland Yard is conducting a heavy-handed campaign of intimidation, sanctioned by senior officers and cheered on by vindictive politicians.

There are 169 officers seconded to three separate inquiries into the Press. That’s reported to be more than were involved in investigating the Lockerbie bombing. Mr Plod has lost the plot, on an inter- galactic level.

No one is condoning criminality. Those guilty of hacking mobile phones on an industrial scale or bribing police officers should be punished. But as my old friend and colleague Trevor Kavanagh, one of the most respected political journalists of his generation, complained yesterday, staff at The Sun are being treated ‘like members of an organised crime gang’.

No one arrested over the past few weeks has been charged with any offence. Yet they are being treated worse than terrorist suspects, subjected to draconian bail conditions and have had their lives and distinguished careers put on hold.

Scotland Yard yesterday justified mounting a round-the-clock guard on released hate preacher Abu Qatada on the grounds that it had a ‘duty of care’ to protect him. The Yard clearly feels, however, that it has no equivalent duty of care towards middle-ranking journalists who are being dragged from their beds at weekends.

Why is it that senior executives at News International, such as former chief executive Rebekah Brooks, are allowed to attend police stations by appointment to be questioned, yet lowly foot soldiers are rounded up from their homes like violent armed robbers or drug dealers?

The new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, has so far refused to give any public explanation for the bully-boy behaviour of his officers. He was last seen posing theatrically for the cameras while riding a horse outside White Hart Lane football ground, just in case any of the half-dozen Wigan fans who made the long journey to Tottenham on a freezing Tuesday night decided to start a riot.

My colleagues on the crime beat say that since Hyphen-Howe was installed as Commissioner, ahead of the outstanding candidate Sir Hugh Orde, normal relations between the police and the Press have ground to a halt.

The suspicion is that the former Merseyside chief constable was given the nod by Home Secretary Theresa May because he was considered more likely to toe the political line than the outspoken Orde, who is a staunch defender of the flow of mutually beneficial information between journalists and police officers.

Two of the senior Scotland Yard officers who have been involved in running these investigations, Sue Akers and Cressida Dick, have been on the receiving end of Press attention in the past: Akers in relation to the death of Victoria Climbie under the noses of police and social services; and Dick over the fatal shooting of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes.

Theresa May has yet to explain if she believes this police operation is proportionate. Officers have been taken off other investigations to sift through mobile phone records. There are currently 24 unsolved murders on the books at the Yard.

Given the unprecedented scale of the operation and the money being spent, one might have expected questions in the House. But there hasn’t been a peep. The political class is involved in a deranged witch-hunt against the Press, partly to divert attention from the Prime Minister’s own close relations with News International and partly in revenge for the exposé of the parliamentary expenses scandal.

Alongside the police investigations, there are two other bodies inquiring into the Press — one under Lord Justice Leveson and the other a Commons select committee.

Yet there have never been any corresponding public inquiries into the wholesale theft of public money by MPs and peers, or the collapse of the banking system, which has crippled the economy. If illegal immigrants or suspected Islamist murderers were being dragged out of their beds at dawn, the ‘human rights’ industry would be bouncing up and down like Zebedee from The Magic Roundabout.

But the self-styled champions of civil liberties have stayed strangely silent over the treatment being meted out to Sun journalists.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this whole affair is the role being played by News International’s Management Standards Committee. It is, of course, entirely correct that NI should co-operate with the authorities. But the zeal with which loyal, long-serving employees are being offered up to the police has rightly given rise to outrage that journalists are being thrown to the wolves to protect the parent company’s wider interests.

Although the committee is overseen by an eminent QC, the donkey work is being done by two former newspapermen, Will Lewis and Simon Greenberg, who appear to be trawling through expenses sheets and correspondence to detect any whiff of possible impropriety that can then be fed to the police.

The ferociously ambitious Lewis, when he was editor of the Daily Telegraph, paid £150,000 for a stolen computer disc containing details of MPs’ expenses. He was absolutely right to do so, in the public interest.

But who is to say that some of the other journalists being investigated over alleged payments to public officials were not also acting in the public interest? They are not being afforded the opportunity to give any explanation before they are handed over to the police, arrested and hauled off to the nick.

One Sun reporter is said to have been questioned over a £50 bill for lunch with police contacts. If every hack who has ever bought a sandwich and a beer for a copper — or vice versa, for that matter — is guilty of bribery, they’ll have to build more prisons.

And where do you draw the line? MPs are notoriously fond of troughing at the expense of newspapers. Does that constitute bribery and corruption, too?

Greenberg famously gave up his job as a sports editor to become the official PR spiv for Chelsea’s billionaire Russian owner, Roman Abramovich, at a salary reported to be in the region of £275,000 a year. So the role of poacher-turned-gamekeeper comes naturally to him.

His modus operandi at Stamford Bridge was to threaten to cut out of the loop any reporter who wrote anything that presented his wealthy boss and Chelsea football club in a negative light.

In the interest of disclosure, I should reveal that I know Greenberg slightly. He sits near me at Spurs. But don’t expect me to defend him. I’d rather sell the Big Issue than take a job grassing up fellow journalists.

I wonder what a trawl through Greenberg and Lewis’s past expenses and emails might reveal.

Some people might accuse me of special pleading. After all, I used to write for The Sun and some of those arrested are friends of mine.

But I have maintained all along, ever since the phone hacking scandal broke last summer, that the guilty should be brought to justice. This is much more serious than the fate of one newspaper or a handful of journalists. The Establishment has declared war on the Press and by extension our very democracy. They want to stifle criticism and suppress stories about wrongdoing in public office. If the politicians can shackle popular newspapers they are far less likely to be called to account for their actions.

This also smacks of a monstrous abuse of power by the police, embarrassed at some of their own past dealings with News International.

Britain was once a beacon of Press freedom. We now lag way behind former Soviet bloc states such as Poland, Estonia and Slovakia. Trevor Kavanagh pointed out yesterday that we have slipped to 28th in the International Freedom of Speech league table.

It used to be said that Britain may not be the best country to live in, but it was the best country to go to sleep in. Not when you’re being dragged out of bed by the Scotland Yard Stasi, it isn’t.

SOURCE





Stand up for your faith! Muslim minister gives a rallying cry to Christians

Christianity is in grave danger of being marginalised, Britain's only Muslim cabinet minister will tell the Vatican today.

Baroness Warsi will call for Europeans to take more pride in their religious roots and for Christianity to play a greater role in public life. She will attack the 'basic misconception' that Christianity needs to be 'erased' for minorities to feel welcome in society.

Social cohesion will improve if individuals feel more confident in their religious beliefs, she will tell the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome, a college which trains priests for diplomatic and secretariat duties.

Baroness Warsi is leading a UK delegation to be received by the Pope at the Vatican today. With seven ministers, it is the largest ever UK mission to the Holy See.

The peer, who is co-chairman of the Conservative Party, said she feared that religion was being increasingly downgraded or dismissed as an eccentricity.

Baroness Warsi will call for faith to be given proper space in public life. 'People need to feel stronger in their religious identities, more confident in their beliefs,' she will say.

'In practice this means individuals not diluting their faiths ... and nations not denying their religious heritages. If you take this thought to its conclusion then the idea you're left with is this: Europe needs to become more confident in its Christianity.

'Too often there is a suspicion of faith in our continent. It all hinges on a basic misconception: That to create equality and space for minorities we need to erase our religious heritage.'

Her comments come just days after a landmark legal ruling banning the saying of prayers at council meetings.

Christians and politicians reacted with dismay after a judge overturned centuries of custom by stopping a town hall in Devon putting prayers on the formal agenda.

It prompted concern that it would pave the way for Parliament to abandon prayers before Commons and Lords business, mark the end of hospital and military chaplains, and even lead to the abolition of the coronation oath.

The ruling came on the same day that two Christian guesthouse owners failed in their attempt to overturn a £3,600 fine imposed on them for refusing to allow a gay couple to occupy a double room.

Before Christmas, David Cameron declared Britain to be a Christian country and urged people to 'stand up and defend' the values of the Bible.

Lady Warsi will say that centuries of Christianity have shaped British culture and civilisation and will praise faith for 'inspiring, driving and motivating' good works.

'You cannot and should not extract these Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes,' she will say.

However, the Cabinet minister will warn: 'I see a great danger to this confident affirmation of religion today. It is what the Holy Father called the increasing marginalisation of religion during his speech in Westminster Hall. 'I see it in the UK and I see it in Europe. Spirituality, suppressed. Divinity, downgraded.

'Where, in the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, faith is looked down on as the hobby of oddities, foreigners and minorities. Where religion is dismissed as an eccentricity because it's infused with tradition.'

SOURCE

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

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

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

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14 February, 2012

Live free or sneeze? New Hampshire weighs ban on scents worn by state workers‏

Why must it always be minorities who are catered to? What about the majority who want to smell nice? I get a runny nose for various reasons. Why can't others just put up with it too?

Less is more, according to New Hampshire lawmakers debating whether to ban the use of scented or fragrant soaps by state employees. Under House Bill 1444, state workers who interact with the public would be prohibited from wearing fragrances or scented products while on the job

The reason for the proposed ban -- exposure to scented products can irritate or worsen symptoms for people with asthma or allergies. "The chemicals in some of these products can trigger the nasal congestion, sneezing and the runny nose," Dr. Stanley Fineman, an allergist with Emory University and the Atlanta Allergy and Asthma Clinic, told MyFoxBoston. "With the asthmatics, there's really good data showing their lung function changes when they're exposed to these compounds."

The legislation will get a vote Wednesday. If passed and signed into law, it would take effect within 60 days.

SOURCE



Busted: the politics of cleavage and a glance

Increasingly, women feel they are entitled to dress however they like but take offence when the 'wrong' man has a look, writes Bettina Arndt



A young man and woman are having a friendly chat after a yoga class. The fresh-faced blonde seems totally relaxed but then she freezes. "Did you just look at my chest," she asks angrily, arms firmly folded.

"Yep," mutters the bloke sheepishly. Her response is fierce. "Can't I go to one yoga class without being ogled by some jerk?"

Instead of being cowed, he takes her on, launching into a passionate defence of his action: "If you really didn't want me to stare at your beautiful breasts, you'd be wearing something other than a purple sports bra covering maybe one-third of your perfect tits," he argues, suggesting, among other things, that he's biologically programmed to scan for life-giving breasts for his future offspring. He's cute, passionate and ultimately convincing. She ends up asking him out for coffee.

This skit, from New York media company The Kloons [see video above], has attracted more than a million hits on YouTube. The producers say it wasn't just meant as a joke but "to investigate the deep chasm between men and women".

That mighty chasm is indeed wide and growing, with so many women now feeling absolutely entitled to dress as they like - bare tits, enticing flesh squeezed into the shortest, tightest clothing. Everywhere you look, women are stepping out dressed provocatively but bristling if the wrong man shows he enjoys the display.

And men - well, they are in a total state of confusion. There are cocky, attractive, successful men, alpha males, revelling in this unexpected bounty, boldly eyeing off the assets of women they fancy as their prey.

Sensitive males are wary, not knowing where to look. Afraid of causing offence. And there are angry men, the beta males who lack the looks, the trappings of success to tick these women's boxes. They know the goodies on display are not for them. These are the men most likely to behave badly, blatantly leering, grabbing and sneering. For them, the whole thing is a tease. They know it and resent it.

The state of play was neatly summed up during the recent SlutWalks, where scantily dressed women took to the streets, proudly proclaiming their right to dress as they wish, in protest over a Canadian cop, who suggested women shouldn't dress like sluts if they don't want to be raped.

Jamie Lauren Keiles, an organiser of SlutWalk Chicago, explained that a half-naked woman as a form of protest is different from a half-naked lady pandering to the male gaze. It's about "a woman putting herself out there as a 'f--- you' as opposed to a 'f--- me'," Keiles explained. That may be fine in the context of protesting that scantily dressed women aren't asking to be raped. Of course, there's never an excuse for sexual violence or for men to paw or harass women.

But when young women stand in front of mirrors on a Saturday night, adjusting their cleavage, seeking ever greater exposure, maybe they need to think more about what they are doing. While there are women who claim they dress sluttishly just to make themselves feel good, the fact remains that, like the protesters, the main message sent is about flaunting women's sexual power.

It's an "UP YOURS" gesture of the most provocative kind.

Not that all women understand that's how they come across. A mid-40s woman tells me about a naive 22-year-old work colleague who recently had a breast enlargement.

"She is a tiny thing, quite pretty but socially inept and ready to settle for anything that comes along. She went for a breast enlargement to a D cup in the belief it would attract a better type than her current, unsatisfactory bloke."

The older colleague tried to discourage her but she went ahead with the operation. "Now she gets all weird when older men or ugly men or fat men or any men she doesn't see as ideal even glance at her. She reacts with nervous laughter and at the first opportunity runs back to me and says, 'OMG, you won't believe who looked at me,' as if it is unreasonable for these men to take any notice of her. "And surprise - it hasn't introduced her to a better partner! Now she is talking about having them redone a size larger."

This girl hasn't a clue but plenty of other women know exactly what they are doing, as they make clear in internet discussions of this issue.

"I luv my 36DDs and show them off. I like to see men drool."

"It's so funny when some men get caught cos they have that 'Am I in trouble?' look on their face!"

"It is a tease thing … men are so weak.

"We have such power over them."

Jean* is a 33-year-old, extremely attractive Sydney divorcee completing her PhD in physics. She has a fit body and large breasts, which she likes showing off in revealing clothes. When she "gets the girls out", she enjoys the subtle looks, even a discreet compliment about her body from the right man.

"A quick glance from them, a little moment of recognition, and then back to the conversation. It's part of the dance, hinting at a possible connection," she says.

Are some allowed to look and others not?

"Well, I think there's a sort of sexual food chain and I prefer to engage with people on a similar level as me. Sometimes it feels sleazy when I'm way out of the observer's league, like if they're really old or fat or ugly."

That's the problem. She's advertising her wares to the world, not just her target audience, and somehow men are expected to know when they are not on her page. Jean describes at length the subtle dance, based largely on non-verbal behaviour, that she uses to show men when attention is welcome. But as we all know, many men are lousy at that stuff - the language totally escapes them.

Rob Tiller is a Perth psychotherapist and men's advocate who has run more than 200 men's workshops on communication skills, sex and intimacy. He believes many men are confused about what's going on.

"In one of my workshops, I remember a guy describing women flaunting their bodies as a form of 'biological sexual harassment' towards men, to which most of the group gave a collective nod," Tiller says. "The self-assured, cocky blokes seem to see bare flesh as a green light and often express a 'bring-it-on' attitude but others find it difficult to handle. I think it's a real catch-22 for most men. We really do want to be respectful but that's not always easy with a neon pink G-string staring up at us."

The internet is bristling with men writing about what they regard as women's sexual arrogance. Provocative female attire is an assault against men, writes Giovanni Dannato for In Mala Fide, an online magazine of heretical ideas. He argues women exposing themselves without intending to reciprocate the attention they attract is impolite and inconsiderate - which, he bizarrely suggests, is rather like schoolchildren who bring something tasty to class that they are not prepared to share. It amounts to "an act of aggression in which they use the power of their sex as a weapon", he writes.

Dannato may be on to something when he proposes that some of the catcalling these women attract is a "defence mechanism used by low-status men against women flaunting themselves publicly". There certainly are a bunch of men writing about the plight of the beta males - unattractive, low-status guys who don't get to first base with women.

F. Roger Devlin, a political philosopher who writes challenging material on gender issues for The Occidental Quarterly, points out these beta males have long been tearing their hair out trying to discover what on earth they have to do to make themselves acceptable to the girl next door. They get the message that what women instinctively want is "for 99 per cent of the men they run into to leave them alone, buzz off, drop dead, while the one to whom they feel attracted makes all their dreams come true".

Of course, there is no excuse for gross behaviour when beta males are told to buzz off, told that the titillation isn't meant for them - plenty of men do manage to control themselves in these circumstances.

But surely men have a right to show what it's like to be on the receiving end. There's a great scene in the animated television comedy Family Guy, where Peter Griffin, the overweight, ugly, blue-collar dad, lets fly about Lindsay Lohan putting on her little outfits and jumping around on stage throwing "those things" in front of his face. "What am I supposed to do? What do you want from me?" he asks plaintively. But he knows the answer all too well: "I'll tell you what you want. You want NOTHING. We all know no woman anywhere wants to have sex with anyone and to titillate us with any thoughts otherwise is just bogus."

Griffin's howl of protest is based on the simple truth that some men spend their lives in a state of sexual deprivation, dealing with constant rejection. Roy F. Baumeister is a psychology professor at Florida State University who has extensively researched gender difference in sex drive. "Sexual frustration is almost inevitable for the majority of men and not just occasionally. They won't have enough partners or even enough sex with one partner to satisfy their wishes," Baumeister writes, concluding, "the tragedy of the male sex drive" is men's state of perpetual readiness, which so rarely meets its match.

That's the context that makes the constant just-out-of-reach titillation men now face confusing, irritating and even insulting. Yet many men are still trying hard to get it right, listening to their partners about why they hate men's ogling.

Take these soul-searching words from a 35-year-old Brisbane man.

"When I was first dating my partner, we'd be walking along the beach through the 'minefield' of tanning lasses and I'd moan out loud when a particularly sexy beach bunny crossed our path. My lady would protest my caveman shenanigans to no avail; not only was she hurt by my overtly disrespectful ogling, it also deeply impacted her confidence about her body. Over time, she became much less comfortable with her body at the beach, as well as the bedroom. Five years later, the scars left by my clumsy perving are healing but she still struggles with her body image. Such a shame because, honestly, she's a knockout."

Of course men are going to want to look - "it feels like there's a magnet in her chest" one man complained. But there are men struggling with how to do this in a respectful way. There's a sweet blog on The Good Men Project website - which promotes enlightened "masculinity" - where Hugo Schwyzer describes his total humiliation when Jenny Talbot caught him staring at her boobs in maths class. "You're so perverted," she yelled and Hugh cringed with embarrassment. But since then, he's taken women's studies courses and understands "the problematic power of the male gaze".

And he's ready to give helpful hints to men about how to look without making women uncomfortable. Like the Three-Second Rule: "Few women are going to feel you're undressing them if your glance lasts so short a time."

Anslem Samuel site, which debates relationships and current events - writes some pretty funny stuff about how awkward it is to look everywhere but below eye level: "We'll be looking at the top of your head or straight up at the ceiling. By the time the conversation is over, we'll know how many light bulbs are in every room," he jokes.

It does all have its funny side and there are also plenty of men who love the passing parade. Some men, particularly successful, attractive men, enjoy the show - confident that they are in the target audience. Harry* is a fit, cute 28-year-old, well launched on his media career, a world where he suggests flirting and flaunting is part of the culture. He's comfortable with women displaying themselves to him: "If she has a great body and she enjoys showing it off, for sure I enjoy looking." He tells the story of a meeting with a young woman wearing a fairly fitted yellow dress, "popping out of the top".

"The conversation was about the rate I was going to charge them for advertising. As I looked down at my notebook and did some basic sums, I realised that she was leaning forward, deliberately showing her tits, presumably to throw my concentration." He called her bluff. "I started to laugh and made a comment about putting her body on the line for the business!" She backed off, embarrassed, and he got his deal done.

The young people caught up in all the titillation rarely see any harm in what's going on. I have had many conversations with parents of young women who try to tell their daughters that revealing dress isn't a good idea, only to be rebuffed by statements about women's rights.

Often, the older women will admit they'd been down this road themselves. Here's one: "At 43 years old, I no longer wear revealing outfits as I don't have the body for it, I think women my age look silly flaunting themselves and, frankly, I couldn't be bothered. But when I was young I was always the one to wear outfits that would make a father say, 'You're not going out in that, young lady!"'

She'd yell abuse at guys catcalling from cars at her. "I can wear whatever I want!" Only now does she think about the confused young men she left in her wake, the mixed messages she'd sent them. "Deep down I was much more aware of my power than I actually let on."

SOURCE



A Brief Argument for English Independence

by Sean Gabb

The normal English response to Scottish nationalism is to ignore it, or to see it as an irritation, or to try shouting it down with reminders of all that shared history, or to point out the value of English subsidies and to wait for common sense to win the argument. None of these, I suggest, is an appropriate response. None takes into account that England and Scotland are different nations, and that the loudest and most energetic part of the Scottish nation has decided that the current union of the nations is not in Scottish interests. This does not make it inevitable that the union will be dissolved. It does, however, make this desirable. Scotland may or may not have suffered from the union. But the union has done much to bring England to the point of collapse, and it strikes me as reasonable to say that England can never be safe while there are Scottish members in the Westminster Parliament.

Let us take the New Labour revolution as evidence for this. Since 1997, England has been largely remodelled. There are few institutions, or administrative and legal forms, or even assumptions, from before 1997 that now make sense to anyone who has grown up since then. The gutting of the House of Lords, the altered functions of the judges, the laws to regulate political parties, and that allow unelected officials to supervise and even unseat elected representatives, the new criminal laws and new modes of criminal and civil procedure, the appointment of commissar units in every government agencies and most private corporations to impose the totalitarian ideologies of political correctness – these and many others combine to make present life in England very different from anything known before. There is also our continued and even accelerated integration into the European Union. And there has been the state-sponsored settlement of England by millions who are alien in their appearance and their ways. Every thread of continuity between the English present and past that could easily be snapped has been snapped.

Of course, this creeping revolution did not begin in 1997 – it became undeniably evident when Margaret Thatcher was in office. Nor has it been confined to England – every other civilised country has fallen into the hands of a totalitarian elite. There is an attack on bourgeois civilisation in every place where it exists, and the attack is led by those who were young in the 1970s, and has the support of a mass of economic and other interest groups. But, this being said, just think how many of the Labour ministers were Scottish. There was Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, John Reid, George Robertson, Wendy Alexander, Yvette Cooper, Doug Henderson, and so on and so forth. Below the leadership, an astonishing number of Labour members of parliament or Labour Party officials had Scottish accents. The Labour Party that emerged from its troubles of the 1980s was disproportionately Scottish – and assertively Scottish. Their political ambitions lay in the Labour Party, and not in the Scottish National Party. This did not give them other than a very weak sense of British identity, and gave them no observable understanding of or liking for the English.

Now, the central fact of Scottish history has been English domination. Since the eleventh century, England has been a rich and powerful and unified nation, loyal to a government that, broadly speaking, has been accountable to it. For most of the past thousand years, Scotland has been sparsely populated and without trade. Its people have been divided by language and culture, and by political allegiance, and sometimes by religion. It would be a miracle had Scotland ever managed real independence in these circumstances. It almost never has. The 1707 political union put Scotland under an almost purely English Parliament. The 1603 union of the crowns gave Scotland, after one reign, an English King. Even before then, the most important commoner in Edinburgh had almost always been the English ambassador. Even when there was no English army stationed there, Scotland was subject to varying degrees of rule from London.

In no meaningful sense, therefore, can Scotland be independent so long as it has England as its neighbour. And this is the main significance of the New Labour Revolution, and of the disproportionate Scottish contribution to New Labour. Undeniably, this was part of an overall project to destroy bourgeois civilisation, and understanding it requires a reading of Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault, and all the others. At the same time, it was an attempt to make Scottish independence possible by destroying England. Divide England into half a dozen Euro-regions; set these in competition with each other for money and privilege from Brussels; fill the country with ten or twenty million aliens; make it illegal, or at least in poor taste, to refer to an English identity – and the way is cleared for Scotland to be as independent as any other small nation can be.

This would explain the rising levels of Scottish hatred seen by many English visitors. When I visited Glasgow in 1994, there was much good-natured mockery of the English. When I was there again in 1997, I was driven from a coffee bar by the hostility even of the staff. In 2000, a taxi driver had the nerve to claim he was unable to understand my accent. In 2002, when I replied to hatred with hatred, another taxi driver tried to get me arrested for unspecified drug offences. Scottish politicians and administrators cooperate in discriminating against the English. The Scottish lower classes are best avoided.

The reason is simple. If you hate someone, you may want to destroy him. But, if you want to destroy someone, it is nearly always necessary to hate him. The Scottish claim to hate us for what we have done to them. In truth, they hate us for what they want to do to us. Bearing in mind that the Labour Party remains a Scottish front, and that the Conservatives might lose the next election, the 1707 union is actually more dangerous for England than membership of the European Union.

I will ask in passing why so many English Conservatives disagree with this analysis. One reason is a sentimental attachment to facts that have ceased to exist. This leads to what I find the most bizarre claims from Conservative supporters– for example, that the European Union wants to dissolve the United Kingdom in order to absorb England, whereas the European Union is simply part of the Scottish attack on England. A less creditable motive is that many of the Conservative leaders are themselves Scottish, and an ending of the union would reveal them as foreigners in England, and confirm them as unelectable in Scotland.

Most importantly, there are the electoral considerations. In the short term, removal of the Scottish members would bring about a Conservative domination of Parliament. In the longer term, however, removal of the Labour threat would mean that English conservatives were no longer locked into voting Conservative. I do not believe that many of those who voted Conservative in 2010 felt the slightest enthusiasm for David Cameron and William Hague and George Osborne. These got into office only because a majority of the English people feared and hated the Labour Party. Take away the Labour threat, and there would be the freedom to vote other than Conservative in general as well as in European election. Obviously, union with Scotland benefits the Labour Party. But it also benefits the Conservatives by keeping alive the Labour bogeyman.

I say, then, that the union between England and Scotland should be wholly severed. I say that there should be no customs union or common currency, no rights of movement or of settlement, no shared head of state, no coordination of foreign policy or defence. Scotland and its citizens should become as alien, under English law, as Uruguay now is. This might not suit the interests of the Scottish people, as reasonably considered. But that is not my concern. It should certainly be English policy to prevent the sort of instability north of the border that might encourage foreign – and therefore hostile – intervention, or that might cause mobs of starving refugees to electrocute themselves on the border fences. But, once the union has been severed, I shall be inflexibly opposed to any structure of shared institutions between England and Scotland.

England requires no less. Perhaps, all things considered, Scotland deserves no less.

SOURCE





Nadine Dorries MP: We must stop anti-religious groups from removing the Christian fabric of British society

Parliament now has to face a new problem, which is how to legislate to reverse the decision made yesterday by Mr Justice Ouseley, that the 600 year old practice of Bideford council to say prayers at the start of each council session are not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act of 1972. Because there is one thing which is for certain, the attack upon Christian belief in this country is plumbing the depths of what reasonable people will accept. This ruling is in itself a catalyst which will have prompted a fight back which will set those determind to impose their own secular beliefs upon a Christian society into reverse.

In December, David Cameron described Great Britain as ‘a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so’. This sentence in itself is revealing. Of course we shouldn’t be afraid to say so, but when a van driver loses his job for hanging a crucifix from his cab mirror or a social worker is suspended for wearing a cross and chain around her neck, people are afraid, which is why those words were included in the speech. There is recognition that Christians are being silenced by systemic attack upon their faith and constantly being challenged through the courts.

Bideford council had already voted twice to continue with their prayer tradition following attempts by Liberal Democrat councillor, Mr Bone to have them stopped on the basis that he, a lonely-voiced councillor who wanted them to cease, was having his human rights infringed as he felt embarrassed having to leave the chamber whilst the prayers took place. Not happy, lonely LibDem Mr Bone went to court. It seems he’s not too keen on democracy.

Interestingly, and with a sigh of relief from many, the judge found that Mr Bone’s human rights had not been infringed and it appears the judge took his decision upon what would be described as a narrow technical point. I have bad news for Mr Bone. Parliament doesn’t have much difficulty in dealing with ‘technical points’. Mr Bone is no hero secular warrior. As the voice upon earth of the Bideford branch of the National Secular Society, his action was supported by the larger organisation.

I once regarded the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association in much the same vein, two organisations which believed in, well, nothing much really and were therefore harmless. I have learnt during my time as an MP that both are very far from harmless, extremely political and intent on imposing their anti-faith view, which is in itself rigid and dogmatic, pursued mainly by zealots, so it can only be described as a form of belief in its own right. This, in a country in which 70% of people describe themselves as Christian.

If the National Secular Society had its way, all vestige of religion would be removed from the state and society. Without doubt, their next move will be to have the same ruling applied to Parliament, but that isn’t going to happen. If Mr Bone had won under section nine of the Human Rights act it can only be imagined what would happen to the Queen as head of the Church of England and her role within the state. Would prayers be said at a Coronation or a state funeral? Would the Queen be able to continue as the Monarch? What would have happened to Remembrance Sunday, bank holidays at Easter and Christmas?

It is only when someone attempts to unpick the accepted fabric of our society that one begins to realise the extent to which the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association wish to alter our spiritual landscape which is based upon tolerance and freedom. In Parliament, we also have prayers which take place each and every sitting day before the chamber's business commences. The division bell will ring five minutes before and we MPs who wish to participate in prayers attend the chamber. It is an intimate service which takes place before the cameras are switched on, presided over by the Speaker and the House of Commons Chaplain during which we all say the Lord’s Prayer together, pray for the Queen and ask to be given wisdom during the day in executing our duties.

The three minutes of prayer are a time for sombre reflection and always during this time the privilege I have been afforded to serve my constituents in the historic mother of parliaments washes over me as I am sure it does others. It is a wonderful thing to begin your days work saying sorry for what you have done wrong and thank you for all that has gone well. Those MPs of no faith will sit or stand and read the order paper or simply take the time to reflect upon the day ahead. It works for us.

Until this is sorted, and I am sure it can be with existing legislation or via a Statutory Instrument, I would urge Bideford councillors to meet five minutes before their agenda begins until legislation can allow them to continue with a practice which has been in place since the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It would be a travesty for Mr Bone to win in reality. What is certain though is that re-election for Mr Bone is unlikely. The British people are reasonable by nature and don’t like bullies, and Mr Bone appears to shun one and embody the other.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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13 February, 2012

47 Alleged Paedophiles, All Muslim Men, in Liverpool Crown Court

Strangely, these alleged paedophiles were shipped in from other parts of the country. The real reason for this is unclear but it is rather bizarre, considering some of the offences were committed as far afield as Rochdale, Burnley and Bolton.

This is the first time in British history that forty seven (47) alleged paedophiles have been in court together. This is THE biggest news story in Britain since the Yorkshire Ripper. And yet, for months the news and front pages have been dominated by a ridiculous argument about what names two overpaid footballers allegedly said to each other on a football pitch.

But, the REAL NEWS that innocent little children are being repeatedly raped by gangs of evil paedophiles, especially in the North of England, goes unreported.

So why hasn’t it been front page news for twelve months? Where are all the investigative journalists?

The answer to this conundrum is that ALL of the defendants (the accused) are Muslim males, and ALL of the victims were little white girls, under the age of sixteen, and very often as young as 10, 11, 12 and 13 years of age.

Do you think the media would have kept this quiet, if these 47 alleged paedophiles had been white? Of course not.

The media was there yesterday, and their mantra was “It wouldn’t be right to report on this yet, as nobody has been convicted. These 47 Muslims are only alleged to be guilty.” My answer to this was “Neither has John Terry been convicted of any charge, but you people have hung drawn and quartered him already and forced him out of his job. Why treat Muslims or other foreigners better than English people?”

If the establishment let this particular cat out of the bag, their lies about a so-called “multi-cultural dream” would be well and truly dead. The questions that need to be asked are;

Q: How would I feel if MY daughter had been molested, drugged and raped by paedophiles?

Q: How would I feel if MY grand-daughter had been repeatedly raped by gangs of men?

Q: How would I feel if my niece had been coerced, threatened and blackmailed into sex acts with adults?

Your child may have had her life destroyed by these evil perverts; she may be hooked on drugs; she may be so traumatised that she has gone from being a happy-go-lucky innocent child, into a cowed, drugged, defiled and terrified young woman. Worse still, your child may have gone to an early grave, as 14 year old Charlene Downes did. Your whole family may spend the rest of their lives traumatised by these shocking experiences. How would YOU feel about this?

I have no doubt that the media will say that those of us that were there to draw attention to this case, are ‘extremists’ and ‘trouble makers’. But, the truth is getting out and soon every British person will be aware of what is happening to our children.

We understand that not all Muslims are paedophiles and we realise that this type of behaviour is present in all races and religions but what concerns us is that the men on trial in the Crown Court are following the example of their prophet Mohammed.

The Koran teaches that the Infidels (us) are not worthy of respect and that we must be conquered at all costs. Unfortunately for some of our children this cost is the suffering they experience at the hands of gang rapists who believe that it is totally acceptable to groom, drug and rape at will.

SOURCE





Christianity under attack: Anger as major court rulings go against British worshippers

A landmark legal ruling banning the tradition of saying prayers at council meetings was denounced last night as an ‘assault on Britain’s Christian heritage’. The High Court controversially backed an anti-religious campaign to abolish official acts of worship.

Christians and politicians reacted with dismay after a judge overturned centuries of custom by outlawing a town hall in Devon from putting prayers on the formal agenda.

It prompted concern that it would pave the way for Parliament to abandon prayers before Commons and Lords business, mark the end of hospital and Forces chaplains, and could even lead to the abolition of the Coronation Oath, pledged by Kings and Queens taking the throne.

The ruling means prayers will not be allowed at the start of council meetings across England and Wales, though they may still be said before the official start.

Atheist former councillor Clive Bone started the case against Bideford town council in July 2010, claiming he had been ‘disadvantaged and embarrassed’ when religious prayers were recited at formal meetings.

Backed by the National Secular Society, he insisted that the ‘inappropriate’ practice breached the human right to freedom of conscience and discriminated against non-believers, making them feel ‘uncomfortable’.

The society claimed council meetings should be ‘equally welcoming to everyone in the local community’ and should therefore be ‘religiously-neutral’.

Mr Justice Ouseley, sitting in London, rejected the human rights and equality challenges. But he ruled that formal prayers at council meetings were unlawful because of a technicality in the Local Government Act 1972.

He said local authorities had no power to ‘say prayers or to have any period of quiet reflection as part of the business of the council’. Acknowledging the widespread importance of the case, Mr Justice Ouseley gave Bideford council permission to appeal.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles described the ruling as ‘very illiberal’. He said: ‘The ruling is surprising and disappointing. Christianity plays an important part in the culture, heritage and fabric of our nation.’

He vowed to override the High Court ruling by bringing in the Government’s Localism Act, which would give councils the power to hold prayers at the start of meetings, as early as next Friday.
Verdict: Justice Ouseley, pictured, found the practice did not breach human rights but was unlawful

Simon Calvert, of the Christian Institute, said: ‘Prayers have been a part of council meetings for centuries, and many people, either for religious reasons or cultural reasons, see them as a positive part of our national life.

‘It’s a shame the courts have taken sides with those whose goal is to undermine our Christian heritage. It is high time Parliament put a stop to this assault upon our national heritage.’
‘This has got nothing to do with intolerance towards religion. Religious freedom is an absolute right and so is freedom from religion an absolute right, in my view.’
Clive Bone, the atheist former councillor who brought the case

Harry Greenway, a former Tory MP and ex-chairman of the National Prayer Breakfast, said: ‘If people do not want to attend prayers of this nature, they can stay away instead of meddling and busybodying with other people’s beliefs.

‘Non-believers are not harassed in this way by believers. Why cannot the non-believers show the same kind of tolerance?’

Mr Bone, who left Bideford council because of its ‘refusal to adjust’ its prayers policy, said: ‘I’m delighted. I’m not surprised, I expected to win.

‘This has got nothing to do with intolerance towards religion. Religious freedom is an absolute right and so is freedom from religion an absolute right, in my view.’

Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said: ‘We’re very pleased with the judgment.’

Officials at Parliament said the 1689 Bill of Rights meant the Commons and Lords decided their own business, so a legal challenge would fail.

SOURCE






Fury over moves to hold more British court cases in secret which will 'sweep away centuries of fair trial protections'

Radical changes to the justice system will sweep away centuries of fair trial protections, senior lawyers and civil liberty campaigners warned yesterday. Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke wants ministers to have the power to withhold evidence they deem ‘sensitive’ from civil court hearings.

But critics say the reforms will lead to a rise in the number of secret hearings and would deny defendants the right to challenge evidence used against them.

There would be more ‘Closed Material Procedures,’ where evidence is only disclosed to a judge, minister or ‘Special Advocate’ – a barrister authorised to work on national security cases.

Often, the minister exercising this new power would be a party to the case in a move which campaigners argue is an extraordinary conflict of interest.

The reforms, set out in a Green Paper, also give greater protection to government agencies in civil cases, meaning it would be easier for organisations like M15 and M16 to hide any wrongdoing.

Civil rights group Liberty has launched a ‘secret justice’ campaign to fight the plans, which it warns will have a damaging effect on investigative journalism.

It says the reforms could have led to evidence in high profile court cases such as the Paddington rail crash or the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station being withheld from lawyers and the public.

Liberty’s director Shami Chakrabarti said: ‘The worst scandals in any democracy are often uncovered by a combination of open courts and investigative journalism.

‘This Green Paper proposes to end a centuries’ old principle that no one – even a public body – is above the law. Future ministers would be granted sweeping powers to lock down embarrassing inquests and civil claims against the powerful. Victims of gross abuses of power, the public and the Press could be left in the dark forever. ‘It was bad enough when criminal courts were replaced with secret commissions in the name of national security. ‘Now the entire civil justice system might go the same way in the name of the “public interest”.’

In a blow to the Government’s plans, 57 of the country’s 69 Special Advocates have written to ministers describing the proposals as ‘unsupportable’.

They said: ‘Closed Material Procedures represent a departure from the foundational principle of natural justice that all parties are entitled to see and challenge all the evidence relied upon before the court and to combat that evidence by calling evidence of their own. ‘They also undermine the principle that public justice should be dispensed in public.’

Despite the opposition, Mr Clarke has described the reforms as ‘common sense proposals’ which would merely ‘better equip our courts to pass judgment in cases involving sensitive information’.

SOURCE





Amnesty on truth

Comment from Australia below. Despite its pretensions, Amnesty has been a far-Leftist organization for a long time -- JR

Sara Hudson

I’m ashamed to admit I was a member of Amnesty International in high school. Back then I proudly wore an Amnesty badge on a black beret. Now I cringe at the memory of my naive self lapping up their hyperbole.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported that Amnesty International is urging a parliamentary human rights watchdog to investigate the federal government’s plan to crack down on school truancy by linking welfare payments to school attendance. The article claimed that a recent evaluation of SEAM (Improving School Enrolment and Attendance through Welfare Reform Measure) found that suspending welfare payments did not improve school attendance.

However, that is not what the evaluation actually found. According to the report, attendance rates improved in the two communities where SEAM was trialled – from 74.4% to 79.9% in the Northern Territory and from 84.7% to 88.7% in Queensland.

Where an enrolment notice was sent, 82% of families in the Northern Territory and 84% in Queensland provided enrolment details without the need for a welfare suspension. Of the 4,688 parents in the SEAM communities, only 85 had their welfare payments suspended under the enrolment component and seven under the attendance component.

When critics complain about government’s actions to improve remote Indigenous school attendance, what is it that they expect government to do? Let parents get away with not sending their children to school?

Quarantining people’s welfare because their kids don’t attend school may seem heavy handed, but the consequences of not enforcing school attendance are worse. Already there are tens of thousands of young people in remote communities who are unable to read and write. Do we want this cohort to grow exponentially, or do we want to nip it in the bud?

A recent ad campaign by the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation (ALNF) asked the question: ‘If 80% of kids in Sydney couldn’t read would you lend a hand?’ The same question could be asked about school attendance.

Granted, low school attendance is not the only reason for educational failure in remote Indigenous schools. Education departments across the country, with their separate curricula for Indigenous children, are also to blame.

In one Homeland School, an activity book based on a children’s picture book by Mem Fox is used for all the children aged 5 to 18 (or whatever age children decide that school is boring and stop going altogether).

Instead of complaining about government’s efforts to improve Indigenous school attendance, Amnesty should be complaining about what Indigenous children are being taught when they are at school!

SOURCE

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

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

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

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12 February, 2012

Twelve white American firefighters win $2.5m race discrimination payout after losing out on promotions to black colleagues

Twelve white firefighters have been given more than $2.5 million from the city of Buffalo after they sued the fire department not awarding them promotions they had been expecting.

The men alleged the fire department illegally allowed promotional lists on which they were named to expire so they could promote African-American firefighters instead.

The payouts were based on the level their promotions would have afforded them ranging from $49,000 (£31,000) to $500,000 (£317,000). Emotional damages were also considered, ranging from $20,000 (£12,000) to $30,000 (£19,000) reported NBC affiliate WGRZ.com.

Two men who received the largest awards were selected for promotion to lieutenant late in 2005 by the fire commissioner, and again in early 2006 by a new fire commissioner.

'They had been working 10 or 12 years by 2006. So the judge looked at what their prospective promotions would have been, and ruled that it was likely they would have made battalion commander' an attorney representing the plaintiffs, Andrew Fleming, told msnbc.com. The pair were each given $500,000 based on the judge's calculations, he said.

The ruling of compensation was made by state Supreme Court Justice John Michalek. Fifteen months earlier he made the the initial ruling that Buffalo had illegally failed to promote the firefighters because of racial discrimination

Sleeplessness, marital strain, and depression are all cited in the emotional distress that the men experienced over the past several years.

To be considered for a promotion,firefighters take a promotional eligibility exam, which is designed to test the skills they would need to serve as a lieutenant, captain, or other higher-ranking position in the fire department.

The men alleged they had scored well on their exams, but were passed over for promotions because the city wanted to give minorities, who had not performed as well a chance to fill those positions. 'The word that kept coming up was betrayal,' Mr Fleming said. 'They really felt betrayed by the city.'

Anthony Hynes, a 13th firefighter listed in the suit, failed to receive a payout because there was not enough evidence to support his claim, according to the court.

A spokesman for Buffalo told WGRZ.com that officials are reviewing the decision, and the city may appeal the ruling. Lawyers for the city said they disagreed with the judge's ruling on how much the firefighters should be paid. 'The city, at all times, acted under its rights under federal law,' Attorney Adam Perry told BuffaloNews.com.

'The city has maintained its position that the liability determination made by Justice Michalek was erroneous and should be reversed on appeal.'

SOURCE





A voice of sanity from the real 1984

I mentioned yesterday the travails of Ray Honeyford. What he wrote could well have been written yesterday. He was a true prophet. The first few paragraphs below:

The issues and problems of our multi-racial inner cities are frequently thrown into sharp relief for me. As the head teacher of a school in the middle of a predominantly Asian area, I am often witness to scenes which have the raw feel of reality — and the recipient of vehement criticism, whenever I question some of the current educational orthodoxies connected with race. It is very difficult to write honestly and openly of my experiences and the reflections they evoke, since the race relations lobby is extremely powerful in the state education service. The propaganda generated by multi-racial zealots is now augmented by a growing bureaucracy of race in local authorities. And this makes freedom of speech difficult to maintain. By exploiting the enormous tolerance, traditional in this country, the race lobby has so managed to induce and maintain feelings of guilt in the well-disposed majority, that decent people are not only afraid of voicing certain thoughts, they are uncertain even of their right to think those thoughts. They are intimidated not only by their fear of giving offence by voicing their own reasonable concerns about the inner cities, but by the necessity of conducting the debate in a language which is dishonest.

The term ‘racism’, for instance, functions not as a word with which to create insight, but as a slogan designed to suppress constructive thought. It conflates prejudice and discrimination, and thereby denies a crucial conceptual distinction. It is the icon word of those committed to the race game. And they apply it with the same sort of mindless zeal as the inquisitors voiced ‘heretic’ or Senator McCarthy spat out ‘Commie’. The word ‘black’ has been perverted. Every non-white is now, officially, ‘black’, be he Indian, Pakistani or Vietnamese. This gross and offensive dichotomy has an obvious purpose: the creation of an atmosphere of anti-white solidarity. To suppress and distort the enormous variations within races which I every day observe by using language in this way is an outrage to all decent people — whatever their skin colour.

And there are other distortions: race riots are described by the politically motivated as ‘uprisings’, and by a Lord of Appeal as a ‘superb and healthy catalyst for the British people’ — and the police blamed for the behaviour of violent thugs; rather like the patient blaming the doctor because he has a cold in the head. ‘Cultural enrichment’ is the approved term for the West Indian’s right to create an ear-splitting cacophony for most of the night to the detriment of his neighbour’s sanity, or for the Notting Hill Festival whose success or failure is judged by the level of street crime which accompanies it. At the schools’ level the term refers to such things as the Muslim parent’s insistence on banning his daughter from drama, dance and sport, i.e. imposing a purdah mentality in schools committed to the principle of sexual equality

More HERE






British Christian street preacher who allegedly told gay couple they would 'burn in hell' in High Street rant is cleared of wrongdoing

A Christian street preacher was yesterday cleared of harassing a gay couple - after telling them homosexuals would 'burn in hell'. Religious Michael Overd, 47, was accused of using threatening or abusive language against Craig Manning and Craig Nichol as he preached last July.

A court heard that he approached the pair in busy Taunton High Street, Somerset, calling them ‘sinners’ and proclaiming they would ‘burn in hell’.

But Overd claimed he was merely exercising his right to expression by reading from the bible and was acquitted of the charge by Taunton Deane Magistrates yesterday.

Dean Lampard, from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), speaking after the verdict, said: 'We take allegations of this nature very seriously and when we reviewed the case we determined it was appropriate to charge Mr Overd with harassment.

'We examined the evidence and were satisfied that there was a realistic prospect of conviction and that it was in the public interest to bring criminal proceedings.

'Everyone has the right to live their life free from harassment and distress and we will continue to work closely with Avon and Somerset Constabulary to investigate any allegations of hate crime of any sort, be it homophobic, racist, religious or disability hate crime.'

Overd's lawyers claimed his client was merely reciting a passage from 1 Corinthians

The court heard claims the lay preacher was provoked by a previous altercation with Mr Nichol and Mr Manning in October 2010, when he saw them holding hands.

Mr Nichol, giving evidence at the two-day trial, said as soon as Overd saw them from around 10 metres away on July 16 last year 'the expression on his face changed'. He said: 'He said ‘I have already told these two sinners over here that they are going to burn in hell’. 'He looked at us and pointed at us when he said it. His voice was quite loud and very clear. I felt angry, embarrassed and ashamed.

'I asked him who he was to judge me and he said ‘it’s God’s words, it is in the bible’. 'He said I should repent and ask God for forgiveness.'

Paul Diamond, representing Overd, claimed his client was merely reciting a passage from 1 Corinthians. The passage reads: 'Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.'

SOURCE






Tolerance Is Still Not a Two-Way Street

Mike Adams recently reported on the landmark ruling of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Julea Ward case, noting that the decision eloquently defended “fundamental religious freedom against a full-frontal assault from the LGBT community.” In the court’s own words, “Tolerance is a two-way street. Otherwise, the rule mandates orthodoxy, not anti-discrimination.”

Unfortunately, there are daily reminders that tolerance is anything but a two-way street in America, and I’m not just talking about extreme personal opinions, like the ones expressed in this email from a man named Boris (yet another listener to my dialogue with gay activist Mitchell Gold). He took exception to my affirmation that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, writing:

“So you advocate for human rights violations against gays. You want gays to be executed, killed and tortured in the name of religion? You don’t think gays deserve ANY human rights or protections and in the name of religion you can do anything to gays.

“You are pure evil. Pure evil personified. I know that it must hurt you not to be able to kill or detain and torture your fellow American citizens just because they are gay but at least you can condone violence against black and Arab gay persons.

“You are [a] sick, vile person without any human decency.

“I despise you and the violent hatred you espouse. I hope that one day you, your children and grandchildren will face precisely the fate you advocate for gays to endure.

“You are one sick puppy."

“Without any respect whatsoever, because I do not respect people who love violence and murder in the name of their religion.”

Ah yes, the enlightened voice of tolerance! It reminds me of a comment posted by a viewer of a YouTube clip which included my interview on the Tyra Banks show where I dared to suggest that the best case scenario for a child struggling with Gender Identity Disorder was that the child be helped from the inside out, with the goal that the child would eventually feel at home with his or her body. (I advocated for this as opposed to a boy going to school dressed in girl’s clothing, then being put on hormone blockers to delay the onset of puberty, then going through sex-change surgery at the youngest possible age, then being on hormones for life, still never becoming a fully-functioning male or female).

In response to this apparently outrageous suggestion on my part, a 16 year-old girl commented, “He [meaning me] deserves to be beaten, just like trans women get beaten worldwide, and murdered even. . . . I would like to do a lot of violent things to him too. I would horse kick him in the [expletives] while wearing high heels. I hate that man. YES!!!!! He is a [EXPLETIVE] IDIOT!!!!! Don’t you just hate him??!!”

And how did she describe herself? “I’m a 16 year old girl, who is fairly intellectually mature; I’m probably the most intellectually mature teenager in my school. I am open minded, and a loving person.” Indeed!

The sad fact is that these individual voices reflect a prevailing sentiment: Extreme intolerance, even to the point of rank hatred, is justified when it is directed against those perceived to be intolerant. As I have been told more than once, “It’s a good thing to be intolerant of the Nazis and the KKK, and you are no better than them.”

And what does this look like in practice? Just ask Martha Boggs, manager of the Bistro at the Bijou in Knoxville, Tennessee. When Republican State Senator Stacey Campfield came in for breakfast, she made clear to him that he was not welcome there. Why? He introduced a bill that “prohibits the teaching of or furnishing of materials on human sexuality other than heterosexuality in public school grades K-8,” and he has stated that AIDS is primarily a gay male disease, with apparent sordid origins.

According to Campfield, who exited graciously, Boggs greeted him with these words, “I’m not serving you, you’re a homophobe and hate gay people.”

As she explained, “When I saw him at the front door, I told him to leave. It’s just my way to show support for the gay community and stand up to somebody I think is a bully. He’s really gone from being stupid to dangerous. I think he needs to know what it feels like to be discriminated against.”

There you have it. “Senator Campfield, you deserve to be discriminated against. You’re a dangerous homophobic bully, and I have every right not to serve you” – in Knoxville, Tennessee, of all places, where blacks used to be refused service because of their color.

For her actions, Boggs has received thousands of affirmative posts and emails, and she is being hailed as a hero in the LGBT community. What was that about tolerance being a two-way street?

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



11 February, 2012

The dog that didn't bark: Who are the antisemites in France?

The Leftist claim below is obviously self-serving and ignores how readily "anti-Zionism" morphs into antisemitism worldwide. So the report below is wise to ask its readers to gather instances that refute the generalization concerned.

But the whole thing is a red herring. It is not the native French (Left or Right) who endanger Jews in France but the large Muslim population there

There was a small segment in the program "C in the air" on France 5, wherein an official from a French polling institute claimed that there is no anti-Semitism in his country from the left and far left, that French anti-Semitism is on the extreme right and being against Israel is not anti-Semitism.

This may be another opportunity for us to gather texts that prove otherwise. Texts that show that the so-called "anti-Zionism" French leftist and far left is often a contemporary form of anti-Semitism and Judeophobia.

SOURCE (Translated)






Someone else is always to blame

Tribe suing beer companies for alcohol problems‏

An American Indian tribe sued some of the world's largest beer makers Thursday, claiming they knowingly contributed to devastating alcohol-related problems on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota said it is demanding $500 million in damages for the cost of health care, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic alcoholism on the reservation, which encompasses some of the nation's most impoverished counties.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court of Nebraska also targets four beer stores in Whiteclay, a Nebraska town near the reservation's border that, despite having only about a dozen residents, sold nearly 5 million cans of beer in 2010.

Tribal leaders and activists blame the Whiteclay businesses for chronic alcohol abuse and bootlegging on the Pine Ridge reservation, where all alcohol is banned. They say most of the stores' customers come from the reservation, which spans southwest South Dakota and dips into Nebraska.

"You cannot sell 4.9 million 12-ounce cans of beer and wash your hands like Pontius Pilate, and say we've got nothing to do with it being smuggled," said Tom White, the tribe's Omaha-based attorney.

Owners of the four beer stores in Whiteclay were unavailable or declined comment Thursday when contacted by The Associated Press. A spokeswoman for Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide said she was not yet aware of the lawsuit, and the other four companies being sued -- SAB Miller, Molson Coors Brewing Company, MIllerCoors LLC and Pabst Brewing Company -- did not immediately return messages.

The lawsuit alleges that the beer makers and stores sold to Pine Ridge residents knowing they would smuggle the alcohol into the reservation to drink or resell. The beer makers supplied the stores with "volumes of beer far in excess of an amount that could be sold in compliance with the laws of the state of Nebraska" and the tribe, tribal officials allege in the lawsuit.

The vast majority of Whiteclay's beer store customers have no legal place to consume alcohol since it's banned on Pine Ridge, which is just north, state law prohibits drinking outside the stores and the nearest town that allows alcohol is more than 20 miles south, explained Mark Vasina, president of the group Nebraskans for Peace.

The Connecticut-sized reservation has struggled with alcoholism and poverty for generations, despite an alcohol ban in place since 1832. Pine Ridge legalized alcohol in 1970 but restored the ban two months later, and an attempt to allow it in 2004 died after a public outcry.

The reservation encompasses some of the nation's most impoverished counties. U.S. census statistics place Shannon County, S.D., as the third-poorest, with a median household income of $27,300 and nearly half of the population falling below federal poverty standards.

The tribe views the lawsuit as a last resort after numerous failed attempts to curb the abuse through protests and public pressure on lawmakers, White said. He said the tribal council voted unanimously about four months ago to hire his law firm.

The lawsuit says one in four children born on the reservation suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The average life expectancy is estimated between 45 and 52 years, the shortest in North America except for Haiti, according to the lawsuit. The average American life expectancy is 77.5 years.

"The illegal sale and trade in alcohol in Whiteclay is open, notorious and well documented by news reports, legislative hearings, movies, public protests and law enforcement activities," the lawsuit states. " All of the above have resulted in the publication of the facts of the illegal trade in alcohol and its devastating effects on the Lakota people, especially its children, both born and unborn."

Nebraska lawmakers have struggled for years to curb the problem, and are considering legislation this year that would allow the state to limit the types of alcohol sold in areas like Whiteclay. The measure would require local authorities to ask the state to designate the area an "alcohol impact zone."

The state liquor commission could then limit the hours alcohol sellers are open, ban the sale of certain products or impose other restrictions.

Nebraska state Sen. LeRoy Louden of Ellsworth, whose district includes Whiteclay, said he introduced the measure with support from county officials who have seen their health care and jail incarceration costs rise.

SOURCE





Pretty mixed up: "Non-Theist" Soldier Wants U.S. Army to Officially Recognize Humanism as a ‘Faith’ Group

Surely a non-theist is an atheist. It sounds like shifty Church of England theology to say otherwise. Anyway, I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear that his form of atheism is a religion

Soldiers who don’t believe in God can go to war with “Atheist” stamped on their dog tags, but humanists and others with various secular beliefs are still officially invisible in the Army.

Maj. Ray Bradley is currently to be the first humanist recognized as a “distinctive faith group leader” by the Army. In the meantime, he can’t be designated as a humanist on his official records or dog tags, although he can be classified as an atheist.

The distinction may not seem like a large one to those unfamiliar with humanism, but the Fort Bragg-based officer says it’s the equivalent of being told that “Christian” is an acceptable designation, but not “Catholic.” “Humanism is a philosophy that guides a person,” Bradley said. “It‘s more than just a stamp of what you’re not.”

Humanism’s core beliefs range from the assertion that knowledge of the world is derived from observation and rational analysis to the conviction that working to help others also promotes individual happiness.

The issue is another sign of the growing willingness of military personnel at Fort Bragg and other military bases to publicly identify themselves as atheists, agnostics, humanists or otherwise without belief in a supernatural higher power and seek the same recognition granted to Christians, Jews and other believers.

“There are a lot more people with these beliefs than just Major Ray Bradley, but he’s in a position where he can stand up and put in a request for this,” said Jason Torpy, president of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers and an Army veteran.

Bradley, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who enlisted in 1986, is respectful and protective of the Army, and careful to say his views are his own. He said he has been a humanist since before he enlisted, when “No Religious Preference” was his only option. Now he feels getting his official records to match his convictions is an important symbolic point.

“There‘s no regulation that says I can’t go downtown and get a set of tags made that say `humanist,‘ but I won’t do that because it won’t be on my official record,” he said. “To me, this is an individual right.”

A petition campaign organized by Torpy’s group wants “humanist” and “spiritual but not religious” added to the currently available religious designations.

Bradley said he applied for the change to his record after learning that “atheist” was now an officially recognized choice for soldiers. His request was ultimately rejected by the Army Chaplain Corps, he said, which didn’t respond to a request for comment. Bradley believes some of the resistance comes from a lack of familiarity with humanism. “I don’t think the chaplaincy really understands the difference between atheism and humanism,” he said.

Humanism goes beyond a simple statement of disbelief in the existence of a deity or deities, said Howard Katz, president of the Humanist Society, which is sponsoring Bradley’s application to become a lay humanist leader at Bragg.

“Atheism means just that: you don’t believe in God,” Katz said. “You could have an axe murderer who’s an atheist. Humanists have ethics and a philosophy.”

They also have formal “life-cycle celebrations” for occasions like marriages, funerals, even what Katz calls “humanist bar mitzvahs.” Founded in 1939 and chartered as a religious organization, the Humanist Society also certifies celebrants to perform the ceremonies, who then have the same legal authority as members of the clergy.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that humanists and other non-theists in the military are becoming more vocal, because their civilian counterparts are doing the same thing, said Penny Edgell, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota who studies American religion.

“There are lots more organizations for atheists, agnostics and humanists now than there used to be,” she said. “This is an emerging identity.”

The organization of non-theists parallels the mobilization of conservative religious believers in American society, Edgell said. As one group asserts its identity, the other feels the need to respond.

“People are aware that if you’re going to claim it, you have to claim it more strongly,” she said. “There’s kind of a cycle of mobilization.”

The Army currently has no humanist chaplains or laypersons authorized to perform limited chaplain duties, a position roughly equivalent to a deacon or elder in a Christian church. A soldier at Fort Meade, Md., has also filed the paperwork seeking the designation, which is a more formal process in the Army and Navy than in the Air Force, where a humanist lay leader is stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., according to Torpy.

Bradley sees his role as essentially organizing the humanists at Fort Bragg and securing a regular meeting place, for listening to speakers or just gather to talk about their experiences.

“I don’t want to make it sound too religious,” he said with a laugh, after catching himself using the word “congregation.”

“A minority is always much bigger than what‘s visible on the surface until they’re accepted by society,” he said. “Once people realize that their neighbors are part of this minority, and they’re just regular people like anyone else, they become accepted.”

That’s important if non-theists continue to grow in the larger society, said David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland. Surveys vary, but between 15 and 20 percent of Americans now don’t identify with any particular religion, although not all of those people are non-theists.

“There is that trend in society, and we strive to have our military as representative of our society as possible,” he said. “That’s part of the reason the right to serve became so important for blacks, and then women, and then gays. You’ve got that added dimension of military service being a hallmark of citizenship.”

SOURCE




A British prophet sacrificed to appease the mob



The great Irish writer C.S. Lewis once said that ‘of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive’. That is a perfect description of the bullying authoritarianism bred by the dogma of political correctness.

In the name of promoting tolerance, race-fixated zealots exercise the most extreme intolerance, suppressing free debate and indulging in witch-hunts against anyone who dissents from their creed of multi-cultural diversity.

Nothing ever exemplified this pattern of behaviour more graphically than the downfall of former Bradford headmaster Ray Honeyford, who died yesterday, aged 77.

A mild-mannered, popular teacher who devoted his career to the education of disadvantaged children, Honeyford was hounded from his job in the mid-1980s for daring to challenge some of the fashionable orthodoxies of race relations.

Like a character in George Orwell’s 1984, he was deemed to have committed a crime for expressing his views. Branded a racist, he was turned into a figure of national notoriety by a noisy alliance of Left-wingers, municipal ideologues and professional grievance-mongers. The atmosphere of synthetic outrage ensured his reputation was shattered and his career left in ruins.

Yet Honeyford was the victim of a gross injustice. The portrayal of him as a racial bigot could not be further from the truth. As the headmaster of Drummond Middle School in Bradford, he spent most of his time working with ethnic minority pupils, since 95 per cent of Drummond’s intake was of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin.

It was a measure of his success that the school was heavily oversubscribed, with the greatest demand for places coming from Muslim parents. Nor was Honeyford anything like the reactionary that his enemies painted. In fact, he hailed from an unprivileged working-class background in Manchester, one reason that he had such a passion for education as a force for social mobility.

Honeyford’s father was a labourer who had been badly wounded in World War I and his mother was the daughter of penniless Irish immigrants. Honeyford himself failed the 11-plus and had to leave technical school at 15 to support his family, though he was so determined to become a teacher that he completed a degree through night classes.

Having qualified, he taught in a variety of inner-city schools before taking over at Drummond in 1981. Honeyford’s experience of running a largely Asian school gave him a special insight into the iniquities of multiculturalism, the official doctrine that had held sway in state education since the 1970s.

According to this policy, ethnic minority children were encouraged to cling on to their cultures, customs, even languages, while the concept of a shared British identity was treated with contempt. Honeyford thought this approach was deeply damaging. He feared that it promoted division, hindered integration and undermined pupils’ opportunities to succeed in wider British society.

He voiced his concerns by writing an article in the obscure conservative political magazine The Salisbury Review, which was then edited by the distinguished philosopher Roger Scruton.

In it, Honeyford stated that white children constituted the ‘ethnic minority’ in many urban schools: ‘It is very difficult to write honestly and openly of my experiences and the reflections they evoke,’ he wrote, ‘since the race lobby is extremely powerful in the State education service. ‘The term racism functions not as a word with which to create insight, but as a slogan designed to suppress constructive thought.’

The race lobby had become so powerful, he added, that ‘decent people are not only afraid of voicing certain thoughts, they are even uncertain of their right to think those thoughts.’

Among the points that Honeyford made was a criticism of ‘the large number of Asians whose aim is to preserve intact the values and attitudes of the Indian sub-continent’, while he also condemned certain black intellectuals ‘of aggressive disposition who know little of the traditions of understatement, civilised discourse and respect for reason.’

Despite the journal’s tiny circulation, the article sparked a huge outcry in Bradford. A mood of hysteria seemed to grip the city. The mayor Mohammed Ajeeb stoked the flames of anger by calling on Honeyford to be sacked for demonstrating ‘prejudice against certain sections of our community’.

Honeyford had to be given police protection after a number of death threats, picket lines formed outside the school and subjected him to constant abuse, while pupils were given badges proclaiming ‘Hate Your Headmaster’ along with a ‘Pupils’ Charter’ advocating open disobedience.

When one Sikh shopkeeper privately expressed his support, Honeyford urged him to speak out. The Sikh said he could not, because he feared that his shop would be burnt down.

Soon Honeyford was suspended by the local education authority, and though he was subsequently reinstated by the Court of Appeal, a group of aggrieved, politicised parents ensured that it was impossible for him to do his job. In December 1985, he accepted a financial settlement and retired from Drummond Middle.

A broken man, he never returned to teaching. Instead he dabbled in political journalism and policy-making, as well as serving for a spell as a Tory councillor in Bury.

He wrote of how the episode had made his wife Angela, who was also a teacher, suffer acute anxiety. ‘I was daily watching her grow more and more depressed,’ he said after he finally accepted his settlement. ‘I am relieved the conflict is over. It is a reasonable settlement, but no amount of money can compensate for the loss of one’s career or the anguish which Angela and myself have suffered.’

Ray Honeyford should have been able to give so much more.

When I interviewed him in recent years, he was as courteous as ever, but he remained rightly embittered at what happened to him.

Yet he also derived a degree of satisfaction about having been so prescient in that explosive article. Despite all the abuse he endured at the time, many of his warnings about multiculturalism proved correct. He predicted that, without a unifying sense of national identity, we would become an ever-more divided country, which is exactly what has occurred.

Large parts of urban Britain are increasingly split along racial lines, with many Britons now feeling like aliens in their own land. In London, only six per cent of primary schools have a significant white majority.

Even Trevor Phillips, the Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, recently warned that ‘some districts are on their way to becoming fully fledged ghettoes — black holes into which no one goes without fear or trepidation.’ Phillips went on, using words that could have come from Honeyford, that Britain ‘is sleep-walking into segregation’.

When Mr Phillips first began to publicly question the dogma of multiculturalism at the Tory Conference in 2005 — a dogma, incidentally his commission had been enforcing rigorously for many years — Honeyford wrote in the Daily Mail of his surprise and relief.

‘What is so galling,’ he wrote, ‘is that what Trevor Phillips has been saying this week is what I was saying 20 years ago as the headmaster of a predominantly Asian school in Yorkshire. Trevor Phillips calls for integration, the teaching of English and the inculcation of British values, precisely as I did in the mid-1980s.’

The passing of time has shown that Honeyford was equally justified in his warning about Muslim separatism, which has dramatically accelerated in the 28 years since his Salisbury Review article. That process is reflected in the growth of Muslim faith schools and the informal official acceptance of sharia courts. The Department for Work and Pensions even turns a blind eye towards polygamy in its lax distribution of benefits.

We have also seen the rise of Islamic extremism and domestic terrorism, as well as disturbing cases of practices such as honour killings and ethnic gang warfare.

When Honeyford wrote his article, he was branded a heretic. His words had to be suppressed, his influence crushed. But that did not stop him being right.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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10 February, 2012

Workshy UK where hardly anyone lives in hardship... but we also have Europe's highest rate of homes without jobs

Britain has Europe’s highest rate of people living in homes where no one has a job, it was revealed yesterday. But at the same time, the proportion of families who consider themselves to be ‘deprived’ is one of the lowest in the EU.

Analysts point to this contradiction as evidence that our welfare system is too generous to the workshy. Nearly one in eight children and working age adults in the UK live in a home where no one goes out to work. However fewer than one in 20 say they can’t afford to pay their bills, eat properly, go on holiday, run a car or have a colour TV or a mobile phone.

The picture of a country where large numbers of people do not work – yet can afford to live as if they earn good money – was put together by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics arm.

It comes as the Government faces opposition to its attempts to cap families to a maximum income from state handouts of £26,000 a year.

The figures show there is a higher proportion of people living in homes without work in the UK than in EU countries hit by the euro crisis.

In Britain, 13.1 per cent of the population aged under 59 lives in a home where no adult works for 20 per cent of their time. In Germany, the workless proportion of the population is 11.1 per cent, in France 9.8 per cent, and in Italy 10.2 per cent.

Britain’s closest rival in the workless league table is Belgium, where 12.6 per cent of people under 59 are in homes with very little work. However, in Britain only 4.8 per cent of people count as ‘materially deprived’, similar to levels in Germany which has 4.5 per cent.

This means that they cannot afford to pay for four out of nine ‘deprivation items’. The nine things that are considered to lift a family out of the deprived category are the ability to pay the rent or utility bills on time; to keep the house warm; to be able to pay an unexpected bill; to eat meat or fish every second day; to afford a week’s holiday; to run a car; to have a washing machine; to have a colour TV and to have a mobile phone.

In France, the ‘deprived’ make up 5.8 per cent of the population and in Italy 6.9 per cent.

Yesterday critics said the figures exposed flaws in the welfare system. Douglas Carswell, Tory MP for Clacton, said: ‘They show that the welfare system is not doing what it is supposed to do. It is meant to help people who need help because they have fallen on hard times, not people who have learned to play the system.

‘The welfare system has become a means of achieving lifestyle choices for people who do not want jobs, and who are reluctant to get up at six in the morning to go out to work.’

Economist Ruth Lea, of the Arbuthnot Banking Group, added: ‘One factor is that Britain has more single parent families than other countries in Europe. Families with two parents tend to be working families.’

SOURCE




BBC tells its staff: don’t call Qatada extremist

The BBC has told its journalists not to call Abu Qatada, the al-Qaeda preacher, an “extremist”. In order to avoid making a “value judgment”, the corporation’s managers have ruled that he can only be described as “radical”.

Journalists were also cautioned against using images suggesting the preacher is overweight.

A judge ruled this week that the Muslim preacher, once described as “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe”, should be released from a British jail, angering ministers and MPs.

Adding to the row, Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, yesterday insisted that Qatada “has not committed any crime” and said his release has nothing to do with the European Court of Human Rights.

A British court has called Qatada a “truly dangerous individual” and even his defence team has suggested he poses a “grave risk” to national security.

Despite that background, BBC journalists were told they should not describe Qatada as an extremist. The guidance was issued at the BBC newsroom’s 9.00am editorial meeting yesterday, chaired by a senior manager, Andrew Roy.

According to notes of the meeting, seen by The Daily Telegraph, journalists were told: “Do not call him an extremist – we must call him a radical. Extremist implies a value judgment.”

The guidance was criticised by experts and MPs. Maajid Nawaz of Quilliam, a counter-extremist think tank, accused the BBC of “liberal paralysis” over Islamic extremism, saying journalists must be honest about Qatada’s record. He said: “A radical is someone who is different from the norm. An extremist is someone who promotes extreme views and actions, like killing innocents.”

James Clappison, a Conservative member of the Commons home affairs select committee, said the guidance was unjustifiable. He said: “Given the evidence about this man, it makes you wonder what you have to do for the BBC to call you an extremist.”

BBC staff were also cautioned against using library images suggesting the cleric is overweight, because he has “lost a lot of weight”.

A BBC spokesman said: “We think very carefully about the language we use. We do not ban words – the notes are a reflection of a live editorial discussion about how to report the latest developments on this story.”

SOURCE





Australia: How the tune has changed

It is doubtful that the Left have ever done anything of benefit to blacks but their talk these days is good enough to get blacks onside. Both their talk and their behaviour were very different prior to (say) 1960, however. Up to then, blacks were subjected to severe racial discrimination by Leftists. The following is a brief excerpt from a biography of Ned Hanlon, a LABOR party Premier of the Australian State of Queensland and still a revered figure in that party. Labor Premier Peter Beattie named a hospital after him a few years back

"As the minister largely responsible for the development and implementation of the A.L.P.'s welfare policies, Hanlon held assumptions and attitudes that had important consequences for the character of Queensland society. Under his administration Aborigines continued to be subjected to 'enforced population transfers, confinement to particular areas under relatively arbitrary and quite authoritarian regimes, excessive moral scrutiny, interference in intimate human relationships, supervised breeding, imposed placement and calculatedly inferior educational training for their children, control over their labour conditions, wages and personal property, and even suppression of their ''injurious" or menacing ''customs" or practices'. In these ways, Aborigines who, in their 'natural' state—according to Hanlon—were 'about 1,000,000 years behind the white race', were 'protected' by the state."





Some realism in France


French Interior Minister Claude Gueant, truth-teller and Establishment-marked man.

Silvio Berlusconi's finest 1/2 hour came shortly after 9/11 when he became the first and only Western leader to point out the duh-obvious distinctions between Western civilization and Islam -- essentially, one culture enshrines liberty, one does not -- and made the rather modest call for us to be aware of the distinction. For this he was pilloried, excoriated, heaped with scorn the world over, and beat a retreat rapido.

This plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face observation thus successfully purged from the political mainstream, it became the hotly controversial domain of so-called "far right" political figures across Europe, from Filip Dewinter in Belgium to Geert Wilders in Holland to Oskar Freysinger on Switzerland to Heinz Christian Straache in Austria to Pia Kjærsgaard in Denmark and on into Italy, Britain, France, Germany and more.

Now, a French interior minister in Nicolas Sarkozy's government has stepped onto the chopping block with the same message, albeit with more bite. Not only should we be aware of the distinction, we should protect our pro-humanity Western civilization. He made his "outrageous" comments on Saturday. Now, watch the dunications fly.

Suspense: Will he cave? AFP reports:

French Interior Minister Claude Guéant said on Sunday he stood by remarks that not all civilisations are equal, as critics denounced his comments as dangerous and xenophobic.

Guéant, who is also responsible for immigration and is known as a hardliner, provoked a storm of controversy with the comments on Saturday.

"Contrary to what the left's relativist ideology says, for us all civilisations are not of equal value," Guéant told a gathering of right-wing students.

"Those which defend humanity seem to us to be more advanced than those that do not," he said.

"Those which defend liberty, equality and fraternity, seem to us superior to those which accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred," he said in his speech, a copy of which was obtained by AFP. He also stressed the need to "protect our civilisation".

The sky is blue, the pope is Catholic, Grant is buried in Grant's Tomb and the Battle of White Plains took place in White Plains.

"I do not regret (the comments)," Guéant said on Sunday, though he accused critics of taking them "out of context".

The left denounced his speech as an attempt by President Nicolas Sarkozy to woo supporters of the the far-right National Front (FN) ahead of a two-round presidential election in April and May.

Harlem Desir, the number two in theFrench Socialist Party, slammed "the pitiful provocation from a minister reduced to a mouthpiece for the FN".

Bernard Cazeneuve, a spokesman for Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande, denounced the remarks as "divisive and degrading" while former Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal called them "dangerous."

Sarkozy's allies were quick to defend the minister, however.

Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said it was simply "common sense" to suggest that civilisations could be ranked according to values such as "respecting personal rights, rejecting violence or abolishing the death penalty".

Finance Minister François Baroin accused the left of "exploiting the statements for electoral gain".

Foreign Minister Alain Juppé suggested that his colleague had meant to say that "all ideas, all political systems are not equal".

Speaking on BFM television, Juppé said however one should avoid talking of a shock of civilisations, suggesting the term was "inadequate".

Guéant has repeatedly linked immigration with crime in France and last month said the delinquency rate among immigrants was "two to three times higher" than the national average.

In April, he declared that an increase in the number of Muslim faithful in France posed a "problem".

Quelle probleme!

He has also said that he wants to reduce the number of legal immigrants entering France, including those coming to work legally or to join their families.

His latest comments came as the FN's presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is credited with about 20 percent support in opinion polls.

SOURCE


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

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

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

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9 February, 2012

Air Force Removes ‘God’ From Logo

A Virginia lawmaker is calling on the Air Force to reverse a decision to remove a Latin reference to “God” from a logo after an atheist group complained.

Rep. Randy Forbes, (R-VA), said the Air Force removed the logo several weeks ago from the Rapid Capabilities Office. The patch included a line written in Latin that read, “Doing God’s Work with Other People’s Money.”

But after the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers complained, Forbes said the line was rewritten in Latin to read, “Doing Miracles with Other People’s Money.”

Forbes, along with a bi-partisan group of 35 lawmakers, sent a letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz expressing concern over the decision to remove a non-religious reference to God. “It is most egregious,” Forbes told Fox News. “The Air Force is taking the tone that you can’t even use the word ‘God.’”

Forbes said his office contacted the Air Force and officials there confirmed that the logo had been changed after the atheist group complained.

A spokesman for the Air Force told Fox News they had received the letter and would investigate the claims.

Forbes said the removal of “God” is a “bridge too far in terms of the rights of men and women who serve in our services and their ability to express their faith.”

“But the significance of this is what the Air Force is saying with this move – that the word ‘God’ – whether it has any reference to faith or not, can’t be used in the Air Force,” Forbes said.

He said the incident is one of several in recent months that have caused him to wonder if the military is cleansing itself of religious references.

“It’s a very dangerous course to take,” he said. “I am concerned that the RCO capitulated to pressure from an outside group that consistently seeks to remove references to God and faith in our military,” he said. ‘The RCO’s action to modify the logo sets a dangerous precedent that all references to God, regardless of context, must be removed from the military.”

SOURCE





British Gov. Bans Christian Group From Advertising That God Can Heal Illnesses

I wonder when they will crack down on the Prince of Wales' "Duchy originals" -- which is a line of quack medicines

Faith healing comes with a fair share of controversy. For some non-believers, the notion that a higher power would intervene to heal the afflicted it patently absurd. For some believers, even, the practice seems somewhat above and beyond the earthly realm of possibility.

Yet for others, faith healing is an important tenet that showcases the full power and ability of the Almighty. But in England, the government is agreeing with the former cohorts, as an agency is cracking down on the notion that God can cure those in need.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), Britain’s media advertising watchdog, has banned a Christian group from making claims on its web site and advertising brochures that God can cure a number of ailments, RNS reports. According to the ad authority, the group Healing on the Streets (HOTS) Baths was being both irresponsible and misleading in its stated claims about God’s power to heal.

HOPS Bath has claimed that ulcers, depression, allergies, asthma, paralysis and sleeping disorders, among other illness, can be cured by the Lord. After an anonymous individual complained about one of group’s leaflets, the ASA investigated and concluded that the ads “could encourage false hope and were irresponsible.” The leaflet reads:

“Need Healing? God can heal today! Do you suffer from Back Pain, Arthritis, MS, Addiction … Ulcers, Depression, Allergies, Fibromyalgia, Asthma, Paralysis, Crippling Disease, Phobias, Sleeping disorders or any other sickness?

The BBC has more regarding the group’s reaction

“It seems very odd to us that the ASA wants to prevent us from stating on our website the basic Christian belief that God can heal illness.

“All over the world as part of their normal Christian life, Christians believe in, pray for and experience God’s healing; our ministry, in common with many churches, has been active in praying for God’s healing (of Christians and non Christians) for many years.”

The group said it had tried to reach a compromise, “but there are certain things that we cannot agree to – including a ban on expressing our beliefs”.

The ASA has distinguished itself as extremely strict when it comes to oversight. In fact, it‘s considered among the world’s most stringent advertising oversight agencies.

SOURCE






The British army under fire from elf'n'safety and a busybody culture making babies of us all

Once upon a time, when a man chose a career as a soldier, everybody — including himself — knew he was making a deal. In return for more excitement, travel and adventure than he would get as a bank clerk or supermarket manager, he put his life on the line.

Not any more. Last week, the head of the Army, General Sir Peter Wall, made a speech in which he deplored the growing public belief that if wars are fought right, nobody gets killed.

‘I sense there is an expectation in some circles in society that the sort of zero-risk culture that is understandably sought in many other walks of life ought to be achievable on the battlefield,’ he said.

Sir Peter’s dismay is widely shared in the armed forces, and among senior veterans. Recently, I heard General Sir Michael Rose, who commanded the SAS in the Falklands, deplore the new ethic created by coroners, human rights cases and media pressure, which he believes to be gravely damaging the Army as a fighting service.
Litigation

The plague virus of health and safety is seeping into the military, as into every aspect of British life. We are conditioning ourselves to believe that with proper management, we can eliminate risk. Yet as we slither down this sorry road, we diminish the quality of all our lives, and especially those of the young.

For the past month, I have been shooting a documentary for BBC TV, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War. Again and again during filming, small incidents and exchanges have reminded me how much the world, and especially our society, has changed its attitude to risk since 1982.

First came Mike Rose’s remarks before the camera about risk-aversion. Then we went to view construction of one of the Royal Navy’s new carriers at Rosyth.

Before entering the shipyard, as at almost every modern industrial facility, we had to watch a ten-minute health and safety video. Its message could have been conveyed in ten seconds: wear a hard hat, behave sensibly and watch out.

But the company’s lawyers obviously advise that unless every visitor views a childishly exhaustive safety briefing, the yard could be vulnerable to litigation from one of the vulture flock of compensation lawyers that now crowd the courts.

Next day, we were filming Royal Marines cliff-climbing at a quarry in Argyll. I hate heights and am getting old and clumsy. As I made my way along a slate face to shoot a sequence, I gazed uncomfortably down 80ft or so and thought: ‘If I am fool enough to slip and fall, who will get sued? The BBC or the Ministry of Defence?’ I mean, nobody made me wear a safety harness.

I was tempted to stop and write a last will and testament saying: ‘If I break my neck, I want absolutely nobody to get blamed.’ But even then, some idiotic coroner would probably decide that I could not have been of sound mind to say such a thing, so somebody should be blamed anyway.

It is madness, and most of the young realise this. We filmed a group of teenage schoolchildren from Somerset talking about their attitude to history, and to the Falklands. Several of them said, unprompted, that they regret everybody is now so desperate to avoid exposing them to danger that it is much harder for them than it was for our generation to have adventures — which every right-thinking boy or girl wants to do.

I was thinking of their remarks last week, reading accounts of the tragic deaths of the two Essex schoolchildren Olivia Bazlinton and Charlotte Thompson on a level crossing in 2005. Network Rail admits breaches of health and safety regulations, for which the company faces heavy fines.

Yet am I the only person in Britain who asks the question: ‘Why did they not stop and think before crossing the line when red lights were flashing and yodel warnings sounding?’

It is utterly understandable that their parents, distraught with grief, dismiss suggestions that the girls behaved recklessly. But it seems to me that we now expect government and public bodies to protect us all, and especially children, from even the most ill-advised personal actions.

As a teenager, I sometimes did foolish things on and around railway lines because I liked to live dangerously. But I did not doubt then, and do not doubt now, that if anything had gone wrong and I had been injured or killed, blame should have rested solely with me.

Last autumn, my wife and I were among a group visiting some wonderful castles and monasteries along the Black Sea coast. We made jokes about the fact that, in Turkey, Georgia and Ukraine, we could clamber freely on rickety medieval buildings above sheer mountain drops. In Britain, alas, they would be rigorously fenced off as a threat to public safety.

The National Trust and its staff have suffered shockingly from harassment by the Health And Safety Executive, not least in respect of trees, of which you may notice the Trust owns quite a few.

At one point, a senior NT executive was moved to demand of an H&S gauleiter: ‘Are you expecting us to fence off every tree on our properties in case a branch falls on somebody?’ And by gosh, these tyrants came close to demanding just that.

We should recognise the punitive cash costs we inflict on ourselves by demanding that life should become inexorably safer, safer, safer. The railways are statistically our least perilous means of travel. But every time a fatal accident takes place, following a hue and cry, Network Rail or the regional companies are bullied into spending millions of pounds installing new equipment to insure against any repetition.

It would never occur to us to make the same demands, following car accidents such as happen every day. Expenditures on safety are often wildly disproportionate to risk.

But the real price of health and safety madness is paid by all of us as people, morally enfeebled. If we accept no personal responsibility for our actions — and even children are perfectly capable of bearing some — we become sheep, fit only to be herded from pen to pen.

As for soldiers, to return to Sir Peter Wall’s speech last week, it is almost demented for the media, civilian coroners and judges to try to make their trade as safe as stacking supermarket shelves. Almost every man who serves in Afghanistan admits to the buzz he gains from combat — precisely because it is dangerous.

Although the Army has had to fight its recent campaigns amid a deplorable shortage of helicopters, we should ignore much of the claptrap about alleged equipment failures: our soldiers in Afghanistan are the best-equipped Army Britain has ever put into the field.

If their kit is not perfect, it is because nothing ever is. If commanders sometimes make mistakes which cost lives, and earn magisterial rebukes from ignorant coroners, this is because young men do make mistakes, and in war the price is paid in blood.

I often deplore my generation moaning about how Britain is not what it was in our younger days. We must sometimes bow to the spirit of a new century; certain things have got better.

But the spreading pollution of the blame culture, the corrosion even of the spirit of our fighting men by health and safety, seems wholly deplorable. It suggests a society in moral decline, which aspires to make babes in arms of us all.

SOURCE





Circumnavigating the authorities

Why were the parents of the Dutch teen who sailed the world deemed incapable of deciding what's best for their child?

Last month, Dutch teenager Laura Dekker became the youngest sailor ever to complete a solo circumnavigation of the world. This was a phenomenal achievement, requiring incredible personal courage and endurance. But marring her celebrations was the fact that the Guinness Book of Records failed to recognise her achievement on the grounds that it was deemed ‘irresponsible’. Furthermore, Dekker has claimed she may never return to her home country due to the treatment of her, and her parents, by meddling Dutch authorities.

Laura Dekker began sailing alone when she was just six years old. By the age of 13, she had single-handedly completed a trip from the Netherlands to Britain and back. Her proven ability and determination convinced her parents to let her try to realise her ambition to break the record for being the youngest person to sail around the world solo. And last month, at the age of 16 years and four months, she did indeed beat the unofficial record set by Australian teenager Jessica Watson, who was days away from her seventeenth birthday when she completed her voyage in 2010.

Her struggle to achieve this record almost pales in comparison to the struggle to circumnavigate officialdom in order to make the attempt. Strikingly, it was actually the interfering British authorities that caused Dekker’s troubles to begin back in 2009. Following her solo return trip to Britain, police there intervened and tipped off Dutch child welfare authorities who, as a result, began intervening in Dekker’s stated plans to circumnavigate the world. When she turned 14, the Dutch government ruled that she was too young to sail alone.

The young girl and her father, who supported her trip, were brought to court six times as the Netherlands Bureau of Youth Care attempted to take Dekker under guardianship. After she made an attempt to escape to the Dutch Caribbean island, Saint Maarten, she was arrested and brought back to the Netherlands. In her blog, Dekker recalls that ‘over a period of 11 months, I was constantly afraid that Youth Care would lock me up… It was all a frightening and traumatic experience.’

The Dutch authorities’ reaction to Laura Dekker shows that they have become a Frankenstein of the mentality that inspired the introduction of menacing tobacco labels and countless similar policies. The doctrine that individuals need to be saved from themselves has unleashed a swarm of crusading bureaucrats who relentlessly raid our private lives. Joost Lanshage of the Netherlands Bureau of Youth Care exemplified this pervasive creed as he protested, ‘If Laura had drowned we would be accused of not doing enough to protect her.’ Lanshage assumes his responsibility over both Laura and her parents with uncanny ease. More alarming, however, is Lanshage’s testimony that this is what society has come to expect from public authorities.

Forfeiting judgment to a faceless state erodes the importance of personal interactions as it undermines our dependence on family, friends, and community. The state’s hijacking of the responsibility for our lives also robs us of the ability to exercise and develop our personal judgment. This crucial aspect of our development is being debilitated by the craze to squeeze individuals into the shrinking mould of acceptable citizenship. Denying us the right to take risks, enjoy successes and suffer through mistakes restricts our ability to act according to our individual values and develop purposefully. We’re sacrificing our individual autonomy for the comfort of apathetic mediocrity.

As this process continues, unique approaches to life and education increasingly become unacceptable. After Dekker mentioned on her blog that she had to temporarily put schoolwork aside in the face of dangerous storms at sea, Dutch authorities mounted their high horses once again and summoned Laura’s father to court. While the 16-year-old conquered innumerable challenges that the vast majority of adults would not be capable of facing alone, authorities back in the Netherlands fretted at the idea that she would fall behind with her school work. As Dekker rightfully reflected on her blog towards the end of her journey, ‘Now, after sailing around the world, with… the full responsibility of keeping myself and [her boat] Guppy safe, I feel that the nightmares the Dutch government organisations put me through were totally unfair.’

Exhibiting the disturbing nature of our culture of conceded autonomy, Lanshage asserted, ‘I am sorry Laura is traumatised, but I have no regrets about fulfilling our responsibility to this child.’ Ultimately, the authorities’ accomplishments amounted to delaying Dekker’s trip, imposing a series of costly safety regulations, and traumatising her along the way. It is unclear what responsibility Lanshage could be claiming to have fulfilled, if not a responsibility ruthlessly to bully an individual because of her entrepreneurial attitude towards her own life. The state’s appetite for macro-managing society has metamorphosed into the self-indulgent micro-management of individuals, dangerously coupled with an ‘ends justify the means’ mentality.

Personal responsibility and the informal authority of close relationships have been appropriated as sacrificial lambs fit for slaughter at the altar of public paternalism. If Laura Dekker had been harmed during her journey, Laura and her family would have been the ones to suffer. By trampling over their authority, the state disrespectfully undermines this intimate relationship. If people want to take risks with their own lives, it isn’t the role of you or me or the state to do anything about it. We should commend Laura for bravely challenging our complacency by turning off autopilot and steering her own course.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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8 February, 2012


Fascist social workers in Austria too

But I guess they've had more practice in the "Ostmark des Deutschen Reichs "

Social workers seize a baby after his GRANDmother failed to pay a TRAFFIC fine! A total abuse of power. Even hate-filled British social workers have not gone that far yet. Though give them time, I guess

A mother has spoken of her struggle to be reunited with her baby after authorities seized him because the child's grandmother faced jail over an unpaid speeding fine.

Social workers in Austria took one-year-old Jonas Leitner from Ann-Kathrin, two months ago, insisting she would not be able to cope if her mother, Heidi, 50, who helped with babysitting, was imprisoned over the £800 ticket.

But authorities have still not reunited mother and son, despite the fact Heidi quickly paid off the debt.

Distraught Ann-Kathrin, 18, now has even missed her child's first steps and understands he is with his second foster family, while social workers process the case.

Ann-Kathrin said: 'When they took him into care we rushed to borrow the money from family and friends and paid off the fine. 'But they didn't bring him back. It's now been seven weeks and apparently he's already with the second foster family. I don't know why they changed from the first family.’

Social workers in Wels in the province of Upper Austria have refused to discuss the case. Spokesman Josef Gruber said the decision had not been taken lightly and that they were unable to comment on individual cases.

The young mother has now got a lawyer, Ronald Gabl, who has made a request at court for the child to be handed back. He said: ‘Quite apart from the fact that the child was taken away because of the traffic offence, the question is how did social workers find out about the speeding ticket and was that a breach of data protection laws.’

Ann-Kathrin, who lives with the boy's father, Andreas, said they would have been able to manage even if her mother had gone to jail over the unpaid ticket.

Gran Heidi said: ‘Of course a young mother needs support but they were managing fine. The youngster even has his own room. ‘When I realised it was a problem the fine was paid within two hours but it didn't seem to make any difference.

‘Now we're only allowed to see him once a week for an hour. The only exception was on his birthday on 26 January and we were allowed an extra hour. ‘It has had a devastating effect on my daughter- she missed her baby's first Christmas and his first tooth. Apparently he is also now walking.'

SOURCE





Extremist atheism

Alain de Botton has reinvigorated the conversation on religion. His new book, Religion for Atheists, moves away from the tedious debates of recent years to a more reflective consideration of religion's role in sustaining shared values.

Religion as a human phenomenon is too vast, pervasive and complicated to be discussed in simple binary terms of belief and unbelief. The evangelical atheists of the past few years may not be notable for sceptical doubt, but religious practitioners are often quite uncertain in their beliefs. De Botton is writing for the sceptics, whether they belong in any religion or not. It's a welcome shift of focus.

Atheists who aren't bigoted enemies of religion will agree that it has made many positive contributions. They are less likely to accept they should have a religion of their own - complete with a temple in London - as de Botton goes on to propose. Establishing atheist places of worship isn't exactly a new idea. As de Botton himself notes, an ambitious program of atheist church-building was part of the Religion of Humanity, invented by the 19th century French thinker Auguste Comte.

An obsessive and at times unbalanced personality, Comte - a fervent believer in phrenology - developed an elaborate daily ritual that included tapping the forehead at the points where science had supposedly located the impulses of progress, altruism and order. He also created a ''virgin mother of humanity'', based on a married woman with whom he had fallen in love. When she died, he appointed her grave a place of pilgrimage.

Such eccentricities were not destined to last but a number of atheist temples were established - not only in Paris, Comte's base, but in Rio de Janeiro, New York, Liverpool and London. In line with Comte's creed, these were temples where disciples could worship the new supreme being - humanity. As far as I know, none of the buildings is used for religious purposes today, though the Brazilian church seems to have been active until late last century.

When he proposes building a temple for unbelievers, de Botton is reinventing a wheel that never really turned. The fad for atheist temples lasted for perhaps 60 years, while places of worship dedicated to something bigger than humanity have been around for thousands of years. There is a nice irony here. For all his loony notions, Comte was more intelligent than most of the atheists who came after him. He saw clearly that religion is an enduring human need that cannot be denied. Yet despite the formative influence it had on writers and philosophers such as George Eliot and John Stuart Mill, Comte's religion of humanity disappeared, leaving hardly a trace.

Even if Comte's church was ephemeral, he was right in predicting religion would not die out. The world is awash with formless religiosity. During most of the last century, politics was the principal vehicle for religion. Communism and the cult of the free market are examples of large, flimsy ideas being turned into articles of faith.

Today, faith is more often channelled through science. Not only the pseudo-science of crop circle enthusiasts and UFO cultists, but genuine advances in science and technology are being used to promote hopes and dreams that are quintessentially religious. People who believe the human mind can be uploaded into virtual space and so be immune to death are recycling the fantasies of 19th-century spiritualists, who also argued their beliefs were based on science.

The very idea of a science-based religion is an absurdity. The value of religion is it points beyond anything that can be known by the methods of science, showing us a mystery would remain even if all could be explained.

Rather than trying to invent another religion surrogate, open-minded atheists should appreciate the genuine religions that exist already. Better spend the money that is being raised for the new temple on religious buildings that are in disrepair than waste it on a monument to a defunct version of unbelief.

SOURCE




Will the Church of England ever find peace?

Unlikely. The dressup queens in its clergy are killing it

Arguments about women bishops will dominate public proceedings of the Synod, but gay marriage is one of the burning issues behind the scenes.

Across the country, the 477 members of the Church of England’s governing body are bundling reports, agendas and background papers into suitcases ready for next week’s four-day General Synod in London.

But while the wood-panelled walls of the circular chamber at Church House, Westminster, echo to the sound of debates on such matters as the Draft Parochial Fees and Scheduled Matters Amending Order, the real decisions will be made furtively in the tearoom during breaks and, for those lucky enough to have received their gilt-edged invitation card, at the white-tie Dinner to the Archbishops and Bishops held at Mansion House every two years.

At the heart of the most important discussions is the question of whether the Church wants to go along with the increasingly liberal mood of English society, or whether it chooses to stick with its traditions.

There is, as always, a list of contentious issues gripping the Church, but such is the speed at which its bureaucracy moves that only one of them – the decades-long argument over women bishops – is on the order paper at General Synod. Meanwhile, at the top of the “shadow” agenda, and certain to be the subject of heated argument, are same-sex partnerships – specifically, the urgent question of whether or not clergy should be allowed to host civil partnership ceremonies in church.

Thanks to an amendment attached to the Equality Act at the last minute in the House of Lords, and passed into law last December, civil partnerships can now be held in places of worship. But because of fears of lawsuits against conservative clergy, the rules require that the governing body of a religion voluntarily agrees to “opt in” to host the events.

The Church of England’s lawyers say it is under no obligation to perform civil ceremonies, using the memorable analogy that a “gentlemen’s outfitter is not required to supply women’s clothes”. Even blessing services for such unions are banned by the Church of England, although that did not stop one rector from allowing two male priests to exchange vows and rings in his church, the picturesque St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London.

But now 100 clerics in the diocese of London, among them Giles Fraser, the former Canon of St Paul’s who resigned during the Occupy London protest, have signed a letter stating that they should have the right to host civil partnerships on grounds of “individual conscience”, just as they can choose to marry divorcees in their churches.

Their letter follows remarks made by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph last week, in which he insisted that the state did not have any power to change the long-settled definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. “We’ve seen dictators do it in different contexts and I don’t want to redefine very clear social structures that have been in existence for a long time and then overnight the state believes it could go in a particular way,” he said.

Although he was immediately branded “Archbigot” by equality campaigners, despite his making clear he did not disapprove of civil partnerships, no senior clerics have spoken out publicly against him. Many are no doubt weighing up the effects on their existing congregations, and the likelihood of attracting new churchgoers, if they were to declare themselves open for gay weddings. Church of England attendance is now down to 923,700 on an average Sunday. And despite a 4 per cent rise in 2010, the number of church weddings has been in decline for years, so gay couples who have resisted civil partnerships as “second-class” could provide a welcome boost.

However powerful the voices of the 100 London rebels may be, they must know that any move to grant them rights of individual conscience would have to be considered by Synod first and would also wait on a House of Bishops review of policy on civil partnerships in general.

While that issue fizzles in the corridors and tearoom next week, the Church will once again put its arguments about women bishops centre stage. Although most in the Church now accept that women will soon be fitted for mitres, about 1,000 outright opponents have departed for Rome over the past year and more are expected to follow, and it is still by no means sure that the lengthy legislative process will proceed smoothly. The Synod will be an opportunity for substantial revisions to the plans, which could see them sent back to the 44 dioceses for further consideration rather than sent forward for the deciding vote at York this July.

Yesterday’s visit by the Prince of Wales and the Bishop of London to a bastion of traditionalism, three Anglo-Catholic churches in north London where no women are allowed to preach, may be seen by liberals as a glimpse of the vanishing world of “smells and bells”. But others may view it as supportive of an important statement made by both Archbishops in the Synod background papers – that they want the C of E to remain a broad church “in which conscientious difference of theological judgement is fully respected”.

The question of how the Church is perceived by the outside world is of crucial importance to its future, though it is likely to be ducked at Synod. There will be much back-slapping in the corridors over the recent performance of the Lords Spiritual – the 26 bishops who sit in the House of Lords. Long regarded by the Left as an embarrassing anachronism in multicultural, democratic Britain, they became the toast of liberals last week for leading a defeat of government plans to cap benefits at £26,000 a year (though that has since been overturned in the Commons).

What most bishops will be talking about is the intervention of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, who missed the Welfare Reform Bill debate but then used a newspaper article to declare that benefits dependency encourages “fecklessness”.

A remarkable degree of unity was on show in the Church as clerics weighed in against their former leader, who faced accusations of buying into evil Tory ideology as well as being “yesterday’s man”. But few seemed to consider that Lord Carey, who previously had a column in the multi-million-selling News of the World, was expressing the views of many ordinary people, as well as government ministers.

Next week will also be the first gathering of Synod since the “debacle” – to quote Lord Carey again – at St Paul’s, another example of how the leadership of the Church, convinced of its moral superiority and used to getting its way, was unable to see how it looked to the outside world. First it welcomed the protesters, then it tried to blackmail them into leaving by closing the cathedral doors, then it sided with the Corporation of London in trying to have them evicted, then it backed down and was forced to deal with the resignation of its dean and canon chancellor.

Since then, we have been treated to a stream of articles by bishops declaring that Jesus would have camped out with the Occupy crowd and denouncing the robber barons of capitalism (who for years have funded their cathedral restoration projects). Again, of course, none of this will be discussed on the record at Synod.

All present will be wondering if the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, will be making his last appearance in the chamber. Lambeth Palace has noticeably failed to deny reports circulating since October that Dr Williams is to return early to his natural home of academia, and the choice of his successor will help determine how the Church is seen by the public as well as affecting its internal wranglings.

Dr Sentamu is the bookies’ favourite, with opinion divided over whether his strident opposition to gay marriage will dent or boost his chances. Despite his meteoric rise through the Church’s ranks, he accepts that Canterbury is a near-impossible job and he would likely be happier were he to remain in York.

After all the unwanted headlines generated by Dr Williams – such as his comments on sharia law and the democratic illegitimacy of radical Coalition policies – Church officials are now expected to put up younger bishops who rarely express their opinions on contentious issues and are not associated with either the conservative or liberal wings.

But it remains unclear if this stance will be welcomed by the people who still make their way to the pews every Sunday, whose average age is now 61 and who have long been characterised as the “Tory party at prayer”.

But, of course, none of this will be discussed in public at the General Synod next week.

SOURCE






Trial by jury: The case for the defence

We should fight hard to defend the right to a jury trial, which remains the ‘lamp that shows that freedom lives’

This week, the UK Ministry of Justice revealed plans to save £30million by restricting the right to trial by jury in ‘minor cases’. The reforms would target offences currently referred to as ‘either way’, because the defendant has the right to choose between being tried by a jury in the Crown Court or by a magistrate in the Magistrates’ Court.

The reforms have been championed by the Magistrates’ Association and the ‘victims’ champion’ Louise Casey, a one-woman quango who in March 2010 was appointed by the New Labour government to represent the interests of victims in the criminal justice system. In November 2010, Casey called for identical restrictions to trial by jury in her report, Ending the Justice Waiting Game: A Plea For Common Sense, in which she derided ‘the administration of law that concerns itself with due process and the rights of offenders’. Speaking to The Times (London) this week, she said: ‘We should not view the right to a jury trial as being so sacrosanct that its exercise should be at the cost of victims of serious crime.’

Many have pointed out that Casey is just the latest in a long line of members of the English establishment who have sought to limit trial by jury. Lord Roskill’s 1986 report on trial by jury in cases involving serious fraud advocated abolishing juries in fraud trials to make the process more ‘expeditious’, despite finding no evidence that jurors were less capable of understanding fraud than judges were. The Runciman report in 1994 recommended abolishing the right to elect trial by jury for certain offences, saying that for many crimes the view of the jury was ‘unnecessary’. Jack Straw called the right to trial by jury ‘frankly eccentric’ in his failed bid to push his doomed Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill on to the statute book in 2003.

Judges, politicians and quango-staffers may see the system of trial by jury as an ‘eccentric’ waste of time and money. But at a time when successive governments have engaged in a prolonged assault on the rights of defendants in criminal trials, standing up for the jury system - famously described by Lord Devlin in the 1950s as the ‘lamp that shows that freedom lives’ - has never been more important. Its value in rebalancing the hugely unequal relationship between the accused citizen and the powers of the state cannot be underestimated.

Juries ensure that the law is applied in a way which is consistent with the social values of the day. This is why juries have the power to acquit a defendant in the face of overwhelming evidence of their guilt. In the nineteenth century, juries in the United States used this power to acquit law-enforcement officers charged with offences under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 for harbouring escaped slaves, even when they had been directed to convict by the judge. These acquittals led the Wisconsin High Court to become the first state court to rule the Fugitive Slave Act to be unconstitutional in 1854. Later, in the 1930s, many juries acquitted those charged with producing alcohol during the days of Prohibition. These acquittals eventually forced prosecutors to stop taking Prohibition cases up in the first place.

More recently, juries have acquitted defendants accused of murder even on overwhelming evidence of their guilt, if they have taken the view that they are not deserving of punishment. For example, Kay Gilderdale was cleared of attempting to murder her 31-year-old daughter, who was suffering from chronic ME, despite clear evidence that her daughter was unconscious when she injected her with morphine. The unfettered discretion afforded to juries enables them to hold the black letter of the law up to contemporary social norms and to make a democratic decision as to whether the defendant is guilty or not.

The jury also represents one of the last areas of public life where we, as members of the public, are absolutely trusted to make important decisions for ourselves. The judge is highly restricted in what he can ask a jury about their deliberations; if he is seen to be putting undue pressure on them to convict, the verdict will be overturned. This esteem has ancient roots. The Athenian speech writer Lysias described the jury’s verdict as ‘sovereign over all the city’s affairs’ and said juries had the power to decide whether the law was ‘powerful or powerless’. In the Roman republics, the decision of the single magistrate was only appealable to the citizen courts made up of up to 1,000 citizens, the verdict of which was absolutely final.

Today, however, the idea that a defendant’s guilt should be determined democratically is being eroded. More and more criminal offences are punishable by way of a fixed-penalty notice, dished out without any need to go before the courts. Bureaucratic organisations like the Independent Safeguarding Authority can effectively punish individuals by restricting their right to work without the need for any criminal conviction. Reams of new legislation encourage defendants, through discounts on their sentence or with prohibitive restrictions on legal aid, to plead guilty as quickly as possible.

All of these measures, along with the attacks on the jury system, are part of the same anti-democratic trend that places efficiency and cost saving before the rights of defendants to a fair trial. We should resist this trend by standing up for the principle of the jury trial, as one of the last remaining guarantors of our stake in criminal justice.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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7 February, 2012

Store security guard is fired for chasing a thief who swiped 20 DVDs... because of crazy British 'elf and safety obsession

When security guard Charles Oloro spotted a shoplifter slipping out of his store with an armful of DVDs, he knew exactly what to do. He gave chase through the shopping centre before catching him and marching him back to the store.

But instead of being congratulated by his bosses, the 42-year-old HMV worker was sacked for apprehending a suspect outside the shop premises.

HMV policy is for security guards to avoid all confrontations with suspects that have the potential to escalate into something more serious. That includes trying to catch thieves once they have carried their stolen goods through the exit doors.

A spokesman for the chain said the rules were introduced in 2007 after a member of staff was stabbed to death in Norwich after apprehending a thief.

Mr Oloro, who has worked for HMV for 14 years, caught the thief in the St Nicholas Centre, Sutton, South London, on New Year’s Eve. He had been watching him acting suspiciously around a display of DVDs. The man had picked up about 20 films before making his way towards the exit.

Once he was close to the doors, he darted out pursued by a quick-thinking Mr Oloro – who caught him 30ft away.

The security guard then frogmarched him back to the shop where he called police. But despite recovering the stolen goods, his actions saw him hauled in front of his bosses, and led to him losing his job.

Mr Oloro, who has two mortgages to pay, said he was just trying to help the shop and save them from losing money. He said: ‘Twenty DVDs is £200 for the shop and that was too much to lose. ‘In a time of recession, I just wanted to save the shop money, and this is how they repay me.’ He said he even went to his manager after the incident to apologise for leaving the shop.

HMV later issued a statement defending their actions.

A spokesman said: ‘While I am not in a position to give specific details of why Mr Oloro has been dismissed... not least because he still has a right of appeal, which we would not wish to prejudice, I can confirm he was asked to leave for an accumulation of reasons.’

But HMV customer Kieran Spears, defended Mr Oloro’s actions. ‘Charlie is a hero,’ he said. ‘He has been there as long as I remember, he’s such a nice guy and everyone knows him. ‘What is the point in having security guards if they cannot tackle thieves?

SOURCE





Let people wear the cross with pride: Bishops join motion to defend Christianity against human rights zealots

Three bishops will call for the Church of England's national assembly to stand up for the right of Christians to wear a cross. They are among more than a hundred members of the Synod to sign a motion condemning the 'silencing' of outward displays of Christianity.

Supporters say the Church should defend Christians against the 'overzealous' interpretation of human rights and equality legislation by judges, politicians and employers.

The motion also calls for the Church to make a landmark statement that wearing a cross is an integral part of the Christian faith. It cites 'ludicrous' cases of Christian practices and symbols being forbidden.

The motion also adds that attempts to scrap prayers at council meetings and to ban employees from wearing the cross could ultimately lead to religion being confined to the home.

The Bishop of Peterborough, the Rt Rev Donald Allister, told The Sunday Telegraph: 'It is to say, OK, if you say wearing a cross isn’t a compulsory part of Christianity, we agree. 'But it is a duty of a Christian to be public about their faith as well as private, and that is clear New Testament teaching.'

The intervention by clergy and lay members of the General Synod comes as four Christians who believe they have suffered discrimination for their beliefs fight a landmark legal battle in the European Court of Human Rights.

The motion highlights the case of Gary McFarlane, a marriage counsellor who was fired for refusing to give sex therapy to homosexual couples.

Mr McFarlane is one of four Christians taking legal action at a landmark European Court of Human Rights hearing because they believe British laws have failed to protect their human rights to wear religious symbols or opt out of gay rights legislation.

Mr McFarlane, from Bristol, was sacked by marriage guidance service Relate in 2008 after he said he could not do anything to promote gay sex.

The former church elder has again appealed on the grounds of religious discrimination that Relate had refused to accommodate his religious beliefs.

He lost his appeal for unfair dismissal at Bristol Crown Court in April 2010 and accused senior judges of being biased against Christianity.

The other cases in the action are of Shirley Chaplin, a Devon nurse banned from working on the wards after she failed to hide a cross she had worn since the age of 16, Nadia Eweida, a check-in clerk for British Airways who was told to remove her small crucifix at work and registrar Lilian Ladele, who was disciplined by Islington council in North London after refusing to officiate at civil partnership ceremonies.

The Rev Stephen Trott, a rector in Boughton, Northampton, who drew up the motion, said: 'There are four cases being appealed currently to the ECHR and that’s an example of the sort of court action where we would be able to say that the established Church, which is part of the law of the land, takes the view that it’s not only a right, it’s a duty of Christians to manifest their faith in public.'

In December, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, appealed to Prime Minister David Cameron on their behalf.

But the Government told the European Court of Human Rights that it backed the British judges and does not accept that the Christians have suffered discrimination. To the dismay of Lord Carey, the Government even said that wearing a cross or a crucifix was not a 'generally recognised' Christian practice – even though Church leaders say it is a hugely significant symbol.

Lord Carey said: ‘I am very disappointed for the individuals concerned who have simply followed their conscience. 'Such is the result of a liberal establishment that has become deeply illiberal.'

SOURCE







No chance of the Church of England connecting with British youth

As if the Guardian were not already preachy enough, it has signed up an actual preacher to write its leaders and op-eds. The Rev Dr Giles Fraser resigned as a canon of St Paul’s in sympathy with people camped on its doorstep for whom I think the kindest word is “troubled”. His departure puzzled his colleagues, who had detected beneath his right-on sound bites a Trollopian eagerness for preferment. They were wrong. Giles is now a professional hack, and he has used his first big article to suggest that the Occupy movement may “revitalise traditional Christianity”.

Of all the delusions nurtured by Left-wing Christians, perhaps the loopiest is that anyone under the age of 40 gives a monkey’s about their opinions. Let me spell this out for ex-Canon Fraser (who, like his former boss Richard Chartres, is jolly keen on his “Doctor” title, though unlike the bishop he at least has a proper doctorate).

Chartres could don mitre and nose-peg and ordain the Occupy protesters as priests of the Church of England and it still wouldn’t revitalise Christianity. England’s few remaining churchgoers have lost any sympathy they had with the smelly fanatics, who yesterday locked boy scouts out of their London headquarters so they could squat in it.

But the crucial point is that the sharpest young opinion-formers are atheists. This is a development that seems to have been missed by the old boobies who pass for bishops in the Anglican and Catholic Churches. It’s a rapid and startling change in our religious landscape and not one that is going to be reversed.

The average bright 25-year-old Briton isn’t looking for supernatural solutions to existential problems. Senior churchmen speak of the “spiritual hunger” of the young. That’s wishful thinking. The next generation don’t believe in God. Few of them frame their arguments as rabidly as Richard Dawkins; they don’t all use the word “atheist” – “humanist” is cooler – but that’s what they are. If they worship anything, it’s “human rights” or, in the case of Johann Hari, Laurie Penny and Owen Jones, themselves.

Their attitude towards Christians ranges from indifference to hatred. This is partly thanks to the paedophile scandal in the Catholic Church. We can argue about the extent to which this has been misreported, but not about the fact that crimes against children were covered up by bishops (and not just conservative ones, either). These crimes were seized upon by academics, writers and opportunistic publishers to create an indestructible caricature of institutional Christianity.

One reason that caricature isn’t challenged is that this is the first generation of young people whose parents didn’t go to church themselves. Their religious education consists of nativity plays, visits to Sikh temples and lectures about energy-saving light bulbs.

But that doesn’t make the new atheists stupid, despite their intergalactic levels of conceit. The brightest of them are far, far cleverer than the bishops, who (if you ignore the puzzling anomaly of Rowan Williams) are men of middling intellect – and that’s being polite, in the case of the Catholic hierarchy. All that drivel about “religion in the public square” makes me want to convert to a more rigorous creed, such as a Prince Philip-worshipping cargo cult. I was going to suggest that, for all the good they do, the bishops might as well join Giles Fraser and write Guardian leaders for a living. But, frankly, they’re not up to it.

SOURCE





The lessons of the fall of communism have still not been learnt

The air is filled with noisy outrage about the moral emergency of the day. We are, according to the leaders of every major political party, in the midst of a crisis of capitalism. However bountiful the free market system may have been at its best, it is now in such deep disrepute that any politician who wishes to remain credible must join in the general vilification.

Even in this storm of condemnation, everyone has to admit that there is actually no alternative to free market economics or to the private banking system. So the competition is strictly between adjectives: “responsible” or sometimes “socially responsible” banking are great favourites, but now Ed Miliband has produced something called a “national banking system”, which is presumably not to be confused with a nationalised banking system. The Miliband neologism is intended to suggest banking that takes the concerns of the nation (or the population?) as its own. Whether he sees this role as voluntary or enforced was unclear from his speech last week.

But in spite of the official agreement that there is no other way to organise the economic life of a free society than the present one (with a few tweaks), there are an awful lot of people implicitly behaving as if there were. Several political armies seem to be running on the assumption that there is still a viable contest between capitalism and Something Else.

If this were just the hard Left within a few trade unions and a fringe collection of Socialist Workers’ Party headbangers, it would not much matter. But the truth is that a good proportion of the population harbours a vague notion that there exists a whole other way of doing things that is inherently more benign and “fair” – in which nobody is hurt or disadvantaged – available for the choosing, if only politicians had the will or the generosity to embrace it.

Why do they believe this? Because the lesson that should have been absorbed at the tumultuous end of the last century never found its way into popular thinking – or even into the canon of educated political debate.

Can I suggest that you try the following experiment? Gather up a group of bright, reasonably well-educated 18-year-olds and ask them what world event occurred in 1945. They will, almost certainly, be able to give you an informed account of how the Second World War ended, and at least a generally accurate picture of its aftermath. Now try asking them what historical milestone came to pass in 1989. I am willing to bet that this question will produce mute, blank looks.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism which followed it are hugely important to any proper understanding of the present world and of the contemporary political economy. Why is it that they have failed to be addressed with anything like their appropriate awesome significance, let alone found their place in the sixth-form curriculum?

The failure of communism should have been, after all, not just a turning point in geo-political power – the ending of the Cold War and the break-up of the Warsaw Pact – but in modern thinking about the state and its relationship to the economy, about collectivism vs individualism, and about public vs private power. Where was the discussion, the trenchant analysis, or the fundamental debate about how and why the collectivist solutions failed, which should have been so pervasive that it would have percolated down from the educated classes to the bright 18-year-olds? Fascism is so thoroughly (and, of course, rightly) repudiated that even the use of the word as a casual slur is considered slanderous, while communism, which enslaved more people for longer (and also committed mass murder), is regarded with almost sentimental condescension.

Is this because it was originally thought to be idealistic and well-intentioned? If so, then that in itself is a reason for examining its failure very closely. We need to know why a system that began with the desire to free people from their chains ended by imprisoning them behind a wall. Certainly we have had some great works of investigation into the Soviet gulags and the practices of the East German Stasi, but judging by our present political discourse, I think it is safe to say that the basic fallacies of the state socialist system have not really permeated through to public consciousness.

It would, if one were so inclined, be fairly easy to assume that the grotesque activities of the Stasi, or the Soviet labour camps, were aberrations or betrayals of the true communist philosophy – and a great many people (even within the mainstream Labour party) did believe precisely that for decades. When the entire edifice simply dissolved with an almost bloodless whimper and its masses were free to tell their stories of what life had actually been like under the great alternative to capitalism, that was the end of self-delusion – and it should have been the beginning of the serious discussion.

But in our everyday politics, we still seem to be unable to make up our minds about the moral superiority of the free market. We are still ambivalent about the value of competition, which remains a dirty word when applied, for example, to health care. We continue to long for some utopian formula that will rule out the possibility of inequalities of wealth, or even of social advantages such as intelligence and personal confidence.

The idea that no system – not even a totalitarian one – could ensure such a total eradication of “unfairness” without eliminating the distinguishing traits of individual human beings was one of the lessons learnt by the Soviet experiment. The attempt to abolish unfairness based on class was replaced by corruption and a new hierarchy based on party status.

If the European intellectual elite had not been so compromised by its own broad acceptance of collectivist beliefs, maybe we would have had a genuine, far-reaching re-appraisal of the entire ideological framework. And that might have led to a more honest political dialogue in which everybody might now be talking sensibly about capitalism and how it needs to be managed. It is people – not markets – that are moral or immoral.

Communism’s fatal error was in thinking that morality resided in the mechanisms of an economic system rather than in the people who operated them. There is no way of avoiding the need for individual responsibility, which lies with citizens, not governments – or with bankers as people, not with the “banking system”. Some political leader (David Cameron?) needs to have the nerve to say this or we shall be talking nonsense forever.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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6 February, 2012

Irish Bishop accused of incitement to hatred in homily

A HOMILY delivered at Knock shrine by the Bishop of Raphoe, Philip Boyce, is being investigated by the Director of Public Prosecutions following a formal complaint by a leading humanist who claims the sermon was an incitement to hatred.

The gardai have confirmed to former Fine Gael election candidate John Colgan that they have prepared and forwarded a file to the DPP after he made allegations that the address by Dr Boyce was in breach of the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989.

The homily, entitled: "To Trust in God" was delivered to worshippers during a novena at the Marian shrine in Co Mayo last August and subsequently reported in the media, including The Irish Times, under the headline: "'Godless culture' attacking church, says bishop."

Mr Colgan, a retired chartered engineer and economist from Leixlip, Co Kildare, referred in his formal complaint to two key passages in Dr Boyce's homily which he believes broke the law.

One of the passages referred to the Catholic Church in Ireland being "attacked from outside by the arrows of a secular and godless culture".

A second passage, which was included in the complaint, stated: "For the distinguishing mark of Christian believers is the fact they have a future; it is not that they know all the details that await them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness."

Mr Colgan, who was a leader in the 'Campaign to Separate Church and State' in the late 1990s, said in his complaint: "I believe statements of this kind are an incitement to hatred of dissidents, outsiders, secularists, within the meaning of the [Incitement to Hatred] Act, who are perfectly good citizens within the meaning of the civil law. The statements exemplify the chronic antipathy towards secularists, humanists etc, which has manifested itself in the ostracising of otherwise perfectly good Irish citizens, who do not share the aims of the Vatican's Irish Mission Church."

To back up his complaint, Mr Colgan referred to two statistical surveys carried out two decades apart by the Jesuit sociologist and academic Fr Michael MacGreil, entitled: 'Prejudice and Tolerance in Ireland' and 'Prejudice in Ireland Revisited' which Mr Colgan claims showed "marked prejudice by Roman Catholics and other Christian denominations against agnostics and atheists" (humanist was not an option offered to respondents in either survey).

In his complaint, Mr Colgan said he attributed this prejudice to "hostile propaganda disseminated in school and chapel in the main by or for the institutional churches, for there is no rational or temporal reason".

In a statement to the Sunday Independent, Martin Long of the Catholic Communications office said: "Bishop Boyce's homily 'To Trust in God' is available for anyone to read at catholicbishops.ie.

"I advise any person to read it and judge it for themselves. It is clearly a reasonable, balanced, honest -- and indeed self-critical from a church perspective -- analysis of the value of the Catholic faith. Bishop Boyce is a good and holy man and much loved by those who know him."

After the homily was delivered late last summer, Mr Colgan wrote personally to the cleric seeking a corrective statement.

Dr Boyce responded saying that in his homily he did "not wish to disparage in any way the sincere efforts of those with no religious beliefs, atheists, humanists etc.

"I have too much respect for each human person, since I believe all are created in the image of God. At Knock I wished to encourage and confirm the hope of believers, even in the present challenging times, since trust in God was the theme I was given."

SOURCE





Epidemic of violence in Muslim area causes Swedish hospital to close its doors

Police in Malmö have taken the unusual decision to cordon off the entrance to the accident and emergency department at the Skåne University Hospital following the latest in a rising number of fatal shooting incidents.

”There is a continual threat,” said Hans Olsson, assistant security manager at the hospital to daily Dagens Nyheter (DN), adding that they have taken this extreme measure in response to the rising number of shootings recently.

In a bid to tighten up security arrangements at the hospital, the main way in will be closed off for only the second time in living memory, as early as next week, according to reports in Dagens Nyheter.

Monday saw the latest in a spate of murders that has caused panic throughout the city. Police immediately cordoned off the crime scene where the incident took place, but also decided to stop anyone getting into the A&E building.

As a crowd of some 60 people began to gather outside the entrance, the police were forced to push them back in a bid to secure those inside. "The staff felt threatened by the large quantity of people trying to push in," said Mats Hansson of the Malmö health care union to DN.

The authorities claimed that it was necessary to close the entrance to reduce the risk of criminal gangs who are involved in the ongoing escalation of violence in Skåne getting inside and causing even more trouble.

Security at the hospital in both the previous and current location has gradually been ramped up since the mid 90s, following the fatal shooting of a patient by a policeman.

After that incident, staff were equipped with voluntary panic alarms, although new measures have since come into force making it compulsory to carry them at all times.

In addition, staff have received training in self-defence and how to deal with threatening situations, while extra security guards and surveillance cameras have also been installed at the hospital.

SOURCE






Political Correctness and Muslims

Bill O'Reilly

The story is grisly: a husband and wife murdering their three young daughters, ages 19, 17 and 13, by drowning them along with their stepmother. The couple was assisted by their 21-year-old son. All were found guilty of first-degree murder in Ontario, Canada. They were sentenced to life in prison.

Mohammad Shafia and his wife, Tooba, immigrated to Canada from Afghanistan in 2007. Being Muslims, they believe in Sharia law, which in some cases allows so-called "honor killings" -- that is, if a family member deviates from strict Muslim teachings, other family members can execute them. Of course, that's insane. But under the Taliban in Afghanistan and in some other parts of the world, "honor killings" are allowed.

In his eyes, Shafia's three daughters were guilty of becoming westernized, wearing nontraditional Muslim clothing and associating with the dreaded Christians. So this demented father ordered the girls killed, as well as his first wife, whom he believed was aiding them in their alleged transgressions.

Reporting on the story in America has been scant and strange. According to the Media Research Center, the initial Associated Press report made no mention of the fact that the convicted murderers are Muslim. They were described as "Afghan." In fact, the only theology mentioned in the AP dispatch is Christianity, used while describing the boyfriend of one of the daughters.

On NBC's "Nightly News," anchor Brian Williams said this: "A verdict has been reached in a murder case that's gotten a lot of attention because it involved so-called honor killings of family members. In this case, an Afghan family living in Canada. It is a culture clash getting a lot of attention to our north."

Culture clash? Between whom? Afghans and Canadians? What is Williams talking about?

The reporter on the story, Kevin Tibbles, also avoided using the word "Muslim." He described the motivation for the violence as "a strict religious family that felt it had been disgraced."

What religion? Incredibly, the reporter didn't say.

This is no coincidence. The politically correct U.S. media are frightened by Muslim violence. They avoid the issue whenever they can.

Just think about what would happen if a Catholic father murdered his daughter for having an abortion. Would the AP and NBC News not have mentioned the religion involved? I think we all know the answer to that question.

Political correctness is dangerous because it obscures the truth. It allows certain people and groups to avoid scrutiny for destructive actions. Today, the press in America is dominated by liberal editors who believe they are protecting "minorities" by failing to mention facts that might cast them in a negative light. Thus, honest reporting is becoming almost obsolete when certain groups are involved.

Shafia, his wife and his son are Muslim fanatics who believe they have the right to commit murder in the name of their religion. Somebody get that dispatch to the media.

SOURCE






Damning British report finds £2 billion free nursery scheme 'has failed'

Theory trumps facts again. The American equivalent -- Head Start -- has been failing for 40 years

Labour's multi-billion pound investment in free nursery education has failed to raise school standards, a damning auditors’ report revealed yesterday. Free sessions for all three and four-year-olds - costing up to £1.9 billion-a-year - have failed to translate into improved exam results at age seven.

The scheme was specifically intended to boost children’s development throughout primary and secondary school. But a report by the National Audit Office found ‘it is not yet clear that the entitlement is leading to longer-term educational benefits’.

The authors found that the quality of nurseries was patchy across the country, partly due to poor qualifications among some staff.

Providers were allowed to go an average of 47 months between official inspections, denying parents current information about nursery standards.

Labour introduced free nursery places for four-year-olds in 1998, adding three-year-olds to the scheme in 2004. By September 2010, both three and four-year-olds were eligible for 15 hours per week of free education, for 38 weeks a year.

The Coalition plans to expand the scheme still further, reaching 40 per cent of two-year-olds by 2014/15.

But the public spending watchdog found no evidence the scheme had improved children’s learning - despite the introduction of a so-called ‘nappy [diaper] curriculum’ for nurseries setting down a raft of developmental milestones.

The first children to benefit from two years of free nursery sessions from age three sat national tests for seven-year-olds in 2009, auditors said. Yet results in the so-called ‘key stage one’ tests have shown barely any improvement since 2007.

‘The department did intend that the entitlement would have lasting effects on child development throughout primary school and beyond,’ the report said. ‘National key stage one results, however, have shown almost no improvement since 2007, so it is not yet clear that the entitlement is leading to longer-term educational benefits.’

There was tentative evidence of an effect on children’s learning at five, the report said, but it had failed to last until age seven.

The findings come as a blow to the Government, which has estimated that better education standards driven by the free nursery places will boost national wealth.

Civil servants claim that a pupil achieving five GCSEs at grade C or above will go on to reap lifetime earnings £45,000 than a classmate with no GCSEs.

It needs to bring 5,542 extra children to the five GCSEs benchmark to ensure the nursery places scheme breaks even.

Auditors found that the free nursery entitlement cost £1.6billion in 2010/11, rising to £1.9billion in 2011/12.

The Department for Education has no clear information on how much the scheme cost prior to this, it emerged.

But the best nurseries were not necessarily the best-funded, and quality was variable across the country, the research found. In some areas, just 64 per cent of nurseries were judged by Ofsted to offer a good standard of education, against 97 per cent in others.

Overall, three in 10 children received their free sessions at nurseries not rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said the Department for Education needed to do more to assess the long-term benefits of the scheme. This was necessary ‘to get the best return for children from the £1.9billion spent each 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. 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 February, 2012

Whine! whine! whine! Would YOU be devastated if you found that most physicists are men?

In a profoundly unscientific article, two female physicists are apparently deeply disturbed by the reality concerned. Under the heading "Women in physics: A tale of limits" Rachel Ivie and Casey Langer Tesfaye have written a long screed that can be summarized with both brevity and accuracy by a very fashionable whine: "We bin discriminated against".

A physics education does however seem to have given them some faint attachment to the scientific method, so they go to considerable lengths to substantiate their claims. But do they turn to physics to substantiate their claims? Not at all. Far from offering any comparison of male and female work in physics, they turn to sociology! Like sociologists they have faith that questionnaire surveys will tell them something about reality. I did such surveys for many years and eventually concluded that they don't.

Their anti-scientific orientation is most clearly revealed by "the dog that didn't bark", however. They ignore over a hundred years of research that repeatedly reveals women to have better verbal ability and men to have better mathematical ability. And since physics these days is little more than applied mathematics, that datum could hardly be more relevant. It suggests that not many women have what it takes to be good physicists.

They could of coures disagree with what is one of the most replicated findings in science but instead of disagreeing with it, they simply ignore it -- thus violating one of the most fudamental canons of science: That you must have regard for what others before you have written on your subject.

So their own writing suggests one very good reason why there are not many women physicists: They are just not very good scientists. Their own work suggests that hormones take the place of rationality.

And in the end why does it matter that most physicists are men? I can't see that humanity is badly served by that reality but the case that it does matter is presumably arguable. But they make no attempt to argue it. They just resort to that terminally destructive and totally unrealistic Leftist obsession with "equality". They are very poor intellects indeed. Procrustes would be proud of them.

For reference, I reproduce below the concluding section of their article:

The global survey follows a body of work that has examined the importance to career success of access to resources and opportunities. The survey found that women are less likely than men to report access to various resources and opportunities that would be helpful in advancing a scientific career. It also confirmed, consistent with cultural norms, that men are more likely than women to have a spouse who will shoulder the burden of housework. We noted the cultural expectation that women are responsible for child care and documented survey results showing that parenting affects the careers of women more than it does the careers of men.

Admittedly, our results are derived from the testimony of survey respondents, and it is conceivable that the sex differences we have found exist not because women are treated differently but because they differ from men in their expectations about work. However, the results reported here will come as no surprise to the researchers who have already found that resources, opportunities, and family responsibilities affect women’s careers.4,6 We believe the results reflect an underlying reality of disadvantage—not differing work expectations—and that all the sex-based differences documented here adversely affect the careers of women physicists.

The low representation of women in physics is a problem the community needs to address, but the community also needs to address inequities in access to resources and opportunities. Cultural expectations about home and family also inhibit the progress of women physicists; those, of course, are much more difficult to change. Nonetheless, we look forward to a future in which science truly means science for all.

Eccentric (mainly black) religion causes ire

Black worship services are famously energetic, enthusiastic and active so I see the report below as not very surprising and no cause for concern -- just enthusiasm running riot. Tolerance anyone?

Jewish leaders are criticizing a ceremony that involved a controversial megachurch leader being wrapped in a religious scroll and exalted as a “king” to the applause of his parishioners.

The video from a service last Sunday at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church shows Rabbi Ralph Messer, a Messianic preacher, instructing two men to slowly wrap Bishop Eddie Long in a large scroll that’s purported to be the Torah.

“It doesn’t matter where you go, how you try to attack him. He’s sealed,” Messer proclaims, before the scroll is opened to reveal a teary-eyed Long. Moments later, Long was seated in a plush chair, covered in a prayer shawl while holding the sacred scroll and lifted by four men.

“He now is raised up from a commoner to a kingship,” Messer proclaims, as the men walk Long’s seat around an adoring crowd.

Messianic Jews believe that Jesus Christ, or Yeshua, is the Messiah, putting them at odds with traditional Jewish theology. Most Jews consider the faith to be a form of evangelical Christianity.

Rabbi David Shiff of Congregation Beth Hallel, a Messianic Jewish synagogue in Roswell, condemned the actions in the video.

“Ralph Messer in no way represents Messianic Judaism,” Shiff said. “He is not affiliated with any legitimate branch of Messianic Judaism. His actions in no way reflect the position of Messianic Judaism. I found the presentation to be repulsive and inappropriate.”

The Torah is one of Judaism’s most sacred objects and Jewish groups said the notion that it was used in a ceremony at the church was offensive.

“The notion that he wraps Bishop Long in a Torah is horrifying simply because it’s completely inappropriate. It’s an awful way to use the Torah,” said Bill Nigut of the Anti-Defamation League. “And it doesn’t in any way approximate any Jewish ritual.”

Long was accused of sexual misconduct in September 2010 by four male former church members who accused him of abusing his spiritual authority. He settled out of court in May for an undisclosed amount.

He took a leave of absence last year to deal with his divorce and other personal issues, but returned to the pulpit in January.
Jewish Leaders Speak Out After Bishop Eddie Long Wrapped in Torah

The video, which was recorded Sunday, shows Long sitting on a chair under a spotlight as Messer repeatedly chants, “It’s a new birth.” The camera pans to congregation members, who cheer.

Long’s church, which is in Lithonia east of Atlanta, issued a statement from Messer saying that the ceremony was based on a passage from the Old Testament on restoring the Kingdom of David.

“My message was about restoring a man and to encourage his walk in the Lord,” Messer said in the statement. “The presentation of the Scroll of Torah was simply a way of bringing honor to a man who had given his life to the Lord and had given so much to his church, the Atlanta metro area and throughout the world. “It was not to make Bishop Eddie L. Long a king.”

SOURCE





Flemish politician uses picture of teenage daughter dressed in burka and bikini for campaign against Islam



A Belgian politician has risked causing uproar among Muslims after starting a 'Women Against Islamization' campaign featuring his 19-year-old daughter wearing a burka and a bikini. Filip Dewinter, leader of the far-right Vlaams Belang party, uses a shot of his daughter An-Sofie Dewinter in the dark blue bikini for the political campaign.

The glamorous teenager dons a burka that covers her head and face, while the rest of the Muslim garment is draped over her back.

The provocative image is likely to inflame tensions among Islamic groups and nationalists in the racially-divided country.

The poster shows the words 'Freedom or Islam?' written on a red bar across Ms Dewinter's breasts. Further down the poster a black panel with the words 'You choose!' is seen covering the teenager's crotch.

The extremist Vlaams Belang party claims that it wants to convince women to take a stand against Islam. Ms Dewinter told the Belgian press she does not feel used by the party. She said: 'I've suggested (the poster) myself, I have learned to live with it but I have had everything up to death threats made at me.'

She said that she 'wanted to make this statement.' She added: 'What is the greatest contrast with a niqab? Nude. 'The campaign fits in perfectly with how I feel about the whole issue. As women, we must choose: freedom or Islam.'

The teenager claimed that she had been threatened by Muslim groups. She added: 'Death threats and criticism no longer scare me off.'

Her father, the party's leader, said: 'Women are always the first victims of Islam. We want to make clear that they have a choice.'

The potentially incendiary poster comes after The Islamic fundamentalist group Shariah4Belgium was slammed for its aggressive stance. The group opened the country's first Sharia court, a putting it on a collision course with the country’s nationalists.

Vlaams Belang spoke out against the Muslim courts and said that all legal disputes should be settled in the country’s civil judicial system.

Mr Dewinter claims Shariah4Belgium’s leadership said he should be killed for expressing his views. Sharia4Belguim was fined 550 Euros in January for inciting hatred towards non-Muslims.

Moderate Muslims say they do not agree with the group's hardline stance.

SOURCE






Child's right to see an absent father: New British law to help millions from broken homes

Already in place in Australia

Millions of children from broken homes are to be granted new rights to a 'full and continuing relationship' with both their parents.

The move is designed to ensure that the parent who leaves the family home – most commonly the father – cannot be cut out of their children's lives following an acrimonious separation.

Ministers have decided that a change in the law is vital in the face of heartbreaking evidence that huge numbers of youngsters whose families split up lose contact with one parent for ever.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke have been at odds over the proposals

Courts will be put under a duty to ensure that unless their welfare is threatened by staying in touch with either their mother or father, children have an 'equal right to a proper relationship with both'.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg have dismissed objections from Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke and overturned the findings of a major review of family law which was published last year.

On Monday, the Government will announce a ministerial working group that will draw up radical changes to the 1989 Children Act.

The Act states that the child's needs come first in law courts, but campaigners for fathers' rights complain that judges repeatedly pander to the idea that mothers are 'more important' than fathers.

Unmarried fathers say they are often at a particular disadvantage, having to apply for a 'parental responsibility order' through a court or have one granted through an agreement with the mother.

'The Act is going to be rewritten,' said a Government source. 'The welfare of children must of course remain paramount – but alongside that there will be an equal right for a child to have a proper relationship with both parents.
Children's Minister Tim Loughton said courts are 'rarely the best place' for resolving conflicts between parents about the care of children

'There should be no inbuilt legal bias towards the father or mother, and where there are no welfare issues, we want to see this principle reinforced through law.

'This is about children. We want to be clear that both parents should have a full and continuing role in their children's life after a separation.'

Ministers will pledge £10million for mediation services to encourage more couples to settle their disputes out of court.

Children's Minister Tim Loughton told the Mail: 'The courts are rarely the best place for resolving private disputes about the care of children. That's why we want to see greater use of mediation to solve parental disputes out of court.
Betrayal of the family

'It is also right that we continue to encourage fathers to take responsibility as equal parents and to be fully involved with their children from the outset.'

The decision overturns the main finding of a family justice review, conducted for the Ministry of Justice by businessman David Norgrove, which was published in November.

It concluded that giving fathers shared or equal time, or even the right to maintain a meaningful relationship with their children, 'would do more harm than good'.

The proposals immediately sparked a Cabinet revolt, led by Mr Duncan Smith and Mr Clegg, who insisted that the law must be amended to strengthen fathers' rights.

Official figures show that one in five children from broken homes lose touch with their absent parent, usually their father, within three years and never see them again.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



4 February, 2012

Right-wingers are less intelligent than left wingers, says study

I debunked this study last month. The only well-justified statement below is the last sentence

Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views, says a controversial new study.

Conservative politics work almost as a 'gateway' into prejudice against others, say the Canadian academics.

The paper analysed large UK studies which compared childhood intelligence with political views in adulthood across more than 15,000 people.

The authors claim that people with low intelligence gravitate towards right-wing views because they make them feel safe.

Crucially, people's educational level is not what determines whether they are racist or not - it's innate intelligence, according to the academics. Social status also appears to play no part.

The study, published in Psychological Science, claims that right-wing ideology forms a 'pathway' for people with low reasoning ability to become prejudiced against groups such as other races and gay people.

'Cognitive abilities are critical in forming impressions of other people and in being open minded,' say the researchers. 'Individuals with lower cognitive abilities may gravitate towards more socially conservative right-wing ideologies that maintain the status quo. 'It provides a sense of order.'

The study used information from two UK studies from 1958 and 1970 , where several thousand children were assessed for intelligence at age 10 and 11, and then asked political questions aged 33. The 1958 National Child Development involved 4,267 men and 4,537 women born in 1958.

The British Cohort Study involved 3,412 men and 3,658 women born in 1970. It's the first time the data from these studies has been used in this way.

In adulthood, the children were asked whether they agreed with statements such as, 'I wouldn't mind working with people from other races,' and 'I wouldn't mind if a family of a different race moved next door.'

They were also asked whether they agreed with statements about typically right-wing and socially conservative politics such as, 'Give law breakers stiffer sentences,' and 'Schools should teach children to obey authority.'

The researchers also compared their results against a 1986 American study which included tests of cognitive ability and questions assessing prejudice against homosexuals.

The authors claim that there is a strong correlation between low intelligence both as a child and an adult, and right-wing politics. The authors also claim that conservative politics is part of a complex relationship that leads people to become prejudices. 'Conservative ideology represents a critical pathway through which childhood intelligence predicts racism in adulthood,' says the paper.

'In psychological terms, the relation between intelligence and prejudice may stem from the propensity of individuals with lower cognitive ability to endorse more right wing conservative ideologies because such ideologies offer a psychological sense of stability and order.'

'Clearly, however, all socially conservative people are not prejudiced, and all prejudiced persons are not conservative.'

SOURCE




MPs' 'sexist' beer ban: Top Totty ale outlawed in the Commons bar

And the brewers are laughing all the way to the bank



Like many real ales, its quirky name helps it to stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately for a brew branded 'Top Totty', it stood out a little too much for one female Labour MP who has managed to have it banned from a House of Commons bar.

Kate Green, the party's equalities spokesman, said she found the beer – which has a pump plate with a cartoon picture of a bikini-clad bunny girl – offensive, adding later that it 'demeans women'.

Despite never having even seen the pump in question – and the bar not receiving a single complaint – Miss Green yesterday stood up in the Commons chamber to demand it be removed from sale.

Last night, however, her stance provoked a backlash from men and women alike who branded her 'humourless' and criticised her 'knee-jerk puritanism'. Slater's Ales, meanwhile, the ale's family-run Staffordshire brewery, said the outcry had seen its orders double.

The £2.70-a-pint beer was banned from the Strangers' Bar, where MPs can take guests, within an hour of Miss Green's complaint. Leader of the House Sir George Young intervened to rid Parliament of what he called 'offensive pictures'.

Miss Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston in Greater Manchester, brought up the issue at business questions in the Commons, where she called for a debate in the House on 'dignity at work in Parliament'.

She took up parliamentary time to say: 'I was disturbed last night to learn that the guest beer in the Strangers' Bar is called Top Totty, and that there is a picture of a nearly naked woman on the tap.' She said later on Twitter that it 'demeans women'.

But many MPs did not share her outrage. Tory Tracey Crouch asked on Twitter: 'Why is a beer called Top Totty offensive & now banned from Commons?' Fellow Conservative MP Nadine Dorries tweeted: 'Westminster = sense of humour-free zone. Banning of the Top Totty beer was weak PC decision and gives sensible pro-women advocates a bad name.'

The ale – described as 'blonde, full bodied with a voluptuous hop aroma' – had been introduced as a guest ale by Tory Jeremy Lefroy, MP for Stafford, where it is brewed. Mr Lefroy said: 'These guest ale slots offer a very welcome opportunity for small independent breweries like Slater's to reach a wider audience with their products, some of which have cheeky names.'

The ban was also denounced by Mike Nattrass, Stafford's UKIP MEP, and Claire Fox, director of think-tank the Institute of Ideas. Mr Nattrass said: 'Miss Green really is a humourless sort. This sort of knee-jerk puritanism does more to damage the cause of equality than a thousand beer labels.' And Miss Fox said: 'What really demeans women is the idea that we've no sense of humour – and MPs acting as sanctimonious killjoys in our name.'

Last night Vicki Slater, of Slater's Ales, said: 'At first I just couldn't believe it that in this economic climate a Labour MP would get exercised about the name of a beer.

'But all this publicity has been a blessing. After the fuss, it sold out immediately. People have been phoning from all over Britain asking us to supply their pubs. We're delivering twice as much Top Totty tomorrow as we ever have before.'

SOURCE




"Wrong" Speech Is Also Free Speech: "Citizens United" at Two

In the past week, many commentators have used the second anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee to reiterate their critiques of the controversial decision. Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Public Citizen's Robert Weissman, for example, write that the decision "poisoned our political process" and ask whether the "merits or the money" will now "tip the balance when an issue comes before Congress."

I sympathize with Rep. Sanders and Mr. Weissman. We all hope that our nation's policies are chosen due to merit rather than some other influence. But our valuation of a policy's merit is intertwined with our ideological commitments. Rep. Sanders and Mr. Weissman make this clear when they list policies that they believe would be in effect if corporate speech were suppressed, that is, if "merit" won out over money. Among these: a national health care program, rectifying the "collapse of the middle class," fixing the high price of prescription drugs, and ending gratuitous military spending.

Rep. Sanders and Mr. Weissman thus demonstrate a crucial fact: many who oppose Citizens United do so because they want to silence speech that promotes policies they oppose. They want to silence it because they think it is bad speech that gives a disproportionate influence to bad ideas. Yet there can be no greater violation of the First Amendment than to act with this motive.

Critics of the decision cite the "undue influence" corporations can have on elections through such mechanisms as "drowning out [candidates'] messages" with "misleading negative ads." Sean Siperstein writes about a new campaign by Public Citizen to expose the "mega-corporations" that are most "responsible for greedy, disastrously short-sighted policies, to the detriment of the rest of us."

These critiques blur the line between one type of influence that the Supreme Court has acknowledged should be stopped--outright candidate bribery--and other types of influence that are strongly protected by the First Amendment--such as affecting the national debate or influencing candidates' policies by making both them and the public aware of issues. Critics of Citizens United often conflate these two types of political spending, regarding all corporate spending as either corrupting the national debate through disproportionate influence, or corrupting politicians through something tantamount to bribery.

But tellingly, their critiques are one-sided. Missing from any of the articles linked above is any discussion of the "disproportionate" effect that unions have on the American political landscape. Although it is rarely acknowledged, Citizens United permitted both unions and corporations to make independent campaign expenditures. And make no mistake about it, unions are significant moneyed interests in American politics, comprising nine of the top 15 "heavy hitter" campaign spenders over the last 22 years, according to OpenSecrets.org. It is striking, to say the least, that those who rail against disproportionately loud voices and the "undue influence" of political speech are so silent when it comes to the effects of union spending. Perhaps it is more difficult to be critical of the undue influence of speech that one believes is meritorious. If you agree with the speaker, why not buy him a megaphone?

The omission of any discussion of union money in essentially every critique of Citizens United published in the past month is glaring. A dispassionate assessment of the effects of money in politics demands attention to union spending. But an ideologically committed assessment would tend to view the ideas that one finds convincing as being the result of merit, while viewing the ideas one believes unconvincing and harmful to the nation to be the result of "undue influence." This predilection is not because of any inadequacy on the part of Citizen United's critics, it is a result of human nature.

Yet I do not want to unjustly besmirch Rep. Sanders and the other critics of the decision. Perhaps they believe that union spending should also be curtailed. If so, I wish they would make more of a fuss about it. Otherwise, they demonstrate bias that is extremely harmful to their argument. They also underscore my broader point: it is difficult, if not impossible, for any ideologically committed person to assess which speech, if any, is "unduly influential."

The reasons for this are rooted in human psychology. It can be difficult to explain to ourselves why people disagree with us. This observation is simultaneously mundane and profound. On some level we expect disagreement, but on another level, we scratch our heads at how others can believe in ideas that are so obviously, well, wrong. This is more true for the ideologically committed who have devoted their lives and careers to pushing for a society that they believe would be happier and more just, a category of people to which I fully belong.

There are many possible explanations available to us for why there is opposition to our views. Perhaps those who oppose us are evil. Maybe they're selfish and only care about themselves. But the hardest explanation to accept is that your opponents are honest, well-meaning, informed people who have rational reasons for their views. It's easier, and more self-rewarding, to believe that your opponents are being misinformed by speakers who shout the loudest and actively spread lies.

This last explanation has become a crucial part of the modern debate over campaign finance reform. Understandably so. After all, why should we let liars and shouters stand in the way of a better world?

The First Amendment, that's why.

The First Amendment does not allow anyone to pursue his vision of a better world through censorship. Although we'd all love the liars and shouters to be silenced, the First Amendment forbids such censorship precisely because there is no way to agree on who is a liar and who is "too loud." Those determinations are too intertwined with our ideological commitments.

Although I agree with Rep. Sanders and Mr. Weissman that money may have too much influence on politics, perhaps we should address this problem by creating a government that lacks the power to reward undue influence — that is, a limited government that cannot determine whether someone succeeds or fails in life — and not by stifling free speech.

SOURCE






Australia: Debate rages after call for spanking children to be made illegal

READERS have overwhelmingly rejected a call for an outright ban on parents smacking their own children. At 1.15pm, more than 91% of 6500 votes cast said the practice should not be outlawed as debate raged among commenters.

The debate was sparked by this morning's Herald Sun report of comments by Dr Gervase Chaney, the head of Australia's peak paediatric body, who called for mums and dads to be banned from disciplining their children with physical force. He said it was no longer OK for parents to argue "it never did us any harm" - and called on colleagues to stand up for children's rights.

Speaking today, World Vision Australia head Tim Costello admitted smacking his own children but backed calls for an outright ban. Rev Costello admits he smacked his own children and sympathises with parents who have, but said it is not the right way to discipline. “I think smacking should not be allowed, it should be banned to prevent abuse,” he said.

He has been echoed by Dr Joe Tucci, CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, who said his organisation had been campaigning for a ban for the past 15 years. "We think children should be afforded the same level of protection under law as an adult," he said.

"I don't believe parents necessarily set out to hit their kids, but if they are frustrated, angry or upset with the child it can inadvertently lead to them hitting too hard or in places where it does leave an injury and I don't think parents want that."

Ban 'too interventionist'

But former Australian of the Year and CEO of Child Wise Bernadette McMenamin rejected calls for a ban and said it would leave parents thinking they lived in a nanny state.

Ms McMenamin, whose brother was the victim of abuse as a child, said smacking needed to be stopped – but through education, not the law. "I think it would make parents feel like the Government is going too far, taking over the parental role,” she said. "Setting a law for no smacking, I know where the professor is coming from, but parents would find that far too interventionist and a nanny state."

Ms McMenamin has a child of her own whom she has never smacked and said parents who do smack their children did so for the wrong reasons – and risked escalating smacking into child abuse. "I do not believe that smacking is a useful disciplinary tool, it's about the parent taking out their frustration on a child,” Ms McMenamin said. "If you smack a child, how can you tell what is a smack and what is a punch? "It may start with an odd smack, but it can escalate.”

Political reaction

A spokesperson for Premier Ted Baillieu said this morning there were "no plans to change the law as it relates to the smacking of children".

Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews also said he did not support a change in the law. "A parent's first duty is to care and protect their child, and Victoria already has strong child protection laws in place," he said. "Parenting is hard and it's not made any easier by unenforceable and intrusive proposals like this."

Federal political figures have also opposed a ban on smacking kids, saying criminal law should not be applied to parents. Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey told Sunrise that parents had the responsibility to protect their children. “There are some things that the criminal law shouldn't be involved with,” he said. “In raising children, parents have a responsibility.”

His thoughts were echoed by Minister for Population and Communities, Tony Burke, who also appeared on the program. “These experts, there are helpful ideas they come up with, the naughty corner and these different ideas for raising kids,” he said. “I’ve found a lot of that really helpful with my own kids, but to start saying the criminal law and legal penalties is the way to deal with this - parents do it tough enough already."

Australia 'lagging behind'

Dr Chaney says Australia is lagging behind other countries in outlawing smacking, describing some cases as tantamount to child abuse. He is pushing for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians paediatric and child health division to officially support a ban as the body reviews its policy on smacking.

His comments come after The Royal College of Paediatrics in Britain this week called for a ban on smacking, saying too often "today's smack becomes tomorrow's punch".

In Victoria, parents can smack their children as long as the punishment is not "unreasonable" or "excessive".

The issue has polarised opinion in Australia - the Presbyterian Church last year backed the right of parents to smack their child within existing common-law parameters. The church's submission to a state government inquiry said there was "a significant body of research confirming its utility in raising children well".

Victorian Child Safety Commissioner Bernie Geary said he did not support smacking, but he was worried a ban could be misused and unfairly punish some parents. "The way children are disciplined should be thoughtful and respectful," 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. 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.

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



3 February, 2012

The Double Standard on 'Hoes'

Remember when Don Imus saw his cushy CBS Radio and MSNBC career go up in smoke in 2007 when he tried very early one morning to make one of his fake misanthropic jokes about the Rutgers women's basketball team being "nappy-headed hoes"? Black activists demanded his firing. Advertisers fled. The corporate suits, appalled and fearful of the terrible publicity, canned him.

But if you're a black rapper, terms like this advance your career. The female rapper Nicki Minaj has a very hot new video called "Stupid Hoe." She uses that same term to snap at other women -- "We ship platinum, them b----es are shipping wood / Them nappy-headed hoes, but my kitchen good." (Don't hurt your brain trying to make sense of it.) Minaj even threw the n-word in the lyrics: "How you gon' be the stunt double to the nigga monkey?"

The video broke YouTube records by clocking up 4.8 million views in its first 24 hours on the site and 11 million over the weekend. But outrage from our elites? Hello? Anyone? So far, the silence is deafening from America's major race-card players.

Back in 2007, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton -- the dynamic duo of racial correctness -- met with CBS chairman Leslie Moonves to demand Imus be given the boot. When they won, Jackson called the firing "a victory for public decency. No one should use the public airwaves to transmit racial or sexual degradation."

Sharpton added: "It's not about taking Imus down. It's about lifting decency up...We cannot afford a precedent established that the airways can commercialize and mainstream sexism and racism."

Sumner Redstone, chairman of the CBS Corporation board and its chief stockholder, had told Newsweek that he had expected Moonves to "do the right thing." Translation: Bye-bye, Imus.

It seems rather clear that Imus deserved some punishment, even if his dismissal might be excessive. So why were the reverends applauded universally for their activism?

Because all of their fuss wasn't about "public decency" or "degradation" or media companies "mainstreaming racism and sexism," not really. It was about race, and about how whites can't say "indecent" things about blacks, not even in jest. But blacks can use those very same words -- however they wish -- with the ugliest of intentions, if desired, with impunity. Where are Jackson and Sharpton over "Stupid Hoe" now? Cricket, cricket.

The Washington Post is running a major series this week on the self-esteem issues of black women in America. But when will the Post and other media scolds discover this song and what it says -- and shouldn't say -- about black women?

As for degrading public decency, the song has 10 uses of "bitch," 10 F-bombs and unsurprisingly, 37 uses of "hoe." The refrain, if you want to call it that, is "You a stupid hoe" -- repeated 14 times. A verb, like the word "are," was apparently not necessary. This has to be one of the dumbest, most illiterate songs ever to go viral.

Just because Minaj caused a major YouTube splash and just because the elites were silent, doesn't mean the reaction was favorable. Anyone who clicks on it quickly learns this is not a song, but a droning, rapid-fire, hip-hop headache. The video is so jumpy it could cause epileptic seizures. In the first few days, YouTube watchers gave the Minaj video about twice as many dislikes as likes -- 176,000 to 87,000.

Some commenters just nailed it: "You know, if she's trying to call someone else a stupid hoe, it doesn't help her case too much when she's on all fours, dressed like a leopard, trapped in a cage and whipping her hair everywhere."

But this is my favorite: "36 seconds in and I was losing the will to live."

Last summer, Minaj shocked many by having a breast pop out as she performed on ABCs "Good Morning America." Why the Disney-owned network put this woman on is anybody's guess. She was performing the song "Where Them Girls At," with classy morning-TV lyrics like "You can suck a d--k, or you can suck a ballsack." In her "Stupid Hoe" song, Minaj raps twice "you can suck my diznik."

Minaj is an artist for Cash Money Records, now a subsidiary of the Universal Music Group, which brags that it is "the world's largest music content company." (The French media conglomerate Vivendi did not include UMG in its NBC-Universal deal.) If one accepts these boasts, no one in the world can "mainstream racism and sexism" faster than these people. Let's see if the Imus firing squad ever says a word.

SOURCE





The High Cost of Being a Tiger Mom

American women are both incredibly dogmatic and anxious about our mothering. When Amy Chua described her intense efforts to push her two daughters into high achievement in school, in music and, hence, in life, she caused an uproar among many Americans who consider her methods bordering on child abuse. (What? No playdates!?) Two new studies do point out that there are costs to tiger mothering.

A study by professor Desiree Qin and colleagues was published this month in the Journal of Adolescence and is titled, “Parent-Child Relations and Psychological Adjustment Among High-Achieving Chinese- and European-American Adolescents.”

Qin looked at survey data on 295 Chinese-American and 192 European-American ninth-graders at Stuyvesant High School, a well-regarded public magnet school in Manhattan.

Chinese-American teens reported lower levels of psychological well-being, less family cohesion and more conflict with their parents, on average.

The ethnic differences on psychological adjustment disappeared once family conflict and cohesion were controlled for, suggesting “such perceptions may be a key factor in understanding the high academic achievement/low psychological adjustment paradoxical pattern of development among Chinese-American adolescents.”

“(Chua) said Western children are not happier than Chinese ones,” Qin told the New York Daily News. “But at the same time, research from our study does show that when parents place a lot of pressure on their kids, the children are less happy.”

Tiger mothering works, in other words. But having a mom or dad who constantly push you to perform well can also take a toll.

It takes a toll on the moms as well.

Professor Esther Chang and colleagues also have just published a new study on tiger moms in the January 2012 issue of the Asian-American Journal of Psychology, “Parenting Satisfaction at Midlife among European- and Chinese-American Mothers with a College-Enrolled Child.”

“Chinese-American mothers reported significantly lower parenting satisfaction than did European-American mothers, as well as less positive relationship quality (i.e., lower mutual warmth and acceptance and higher parent-child conflict) and poorer perceived college performance by their young-adult child (i.e., grades, academic investment and satisfaction with students' college experiences),” the study found.

Chinese-American moms whose children did not appear to be doing as well at college reported less parenting satisfaction; Euro-America moms' satisfaction wasn't affected by their children's college performance.

The most important factor in parenting satisfaction for all mothers turned out to be the degree of mutual warmth. Pushing your child to achieve more and more can (but may not always) push your child away from you emotionally.

And yet, and yet, and yet ...

Amy Chua's daughter was just accepted into Harvard this month. And according to the Daily News, this particular tiger cub is also a piano prodigy and “an able writer who eloquently defended her mother in the press.”

Alexander Nazaryan, a member of the Daily News editorial board, points out the overall results of the American emphasis on fun and warmth over achievement: “In the most recent Program for International Student Assessment exam, American teenagers placed 31st in math, 17th in reading and 23rd in science among 65 competitors. Shanghai, China's largest city, topped all three categories -- by far.”

As Amy Chua noted, “In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70 percent of the Western mothers said either that 'stressing academic success is not good for children' or that 'parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.' By contrast, roughly 0 percent of the Chinese mothers felt the same way.”

I did not have a tiger mom. I'm a Spock baby, and I raised my children the same way, emphasizing support and closeness over pressure, routine and discipline.

Frankly, I worry about that a lot. It worked for me -- will it work for them? We mothers can't know until it is too late, hence the anxiety. All parenting strategies have costs as well as benefits.

The only thing I'm certain of is that every mother sacrificing to raise decent kids deserves respect, and not uproarious, dogmatic, overanxious condemnation.

SOURCE






British shopper, 25, asked for ID to buy TEASPOONS – as shop worker says they could be used as drug paraphernalia

A woman was asked to prove her age when buying a packet of teaspoons - as a shop worker claimed they could be used as drug paraphernalia. Elinor Zuke, 25, was told by the self-service checkout at Sainsbury's that she needed age verification as she tried to buy a £1.19 pack of spoons.

A shop worker then intervened and said it was because of the risk they could be used for drugs - heroin users 'cook up' the drug in teaspoons.

Heroin is an illegal Class A drug - so it is irrelevant whether someone is over 18 - the spoon should not be used for that purpose anyway. The maximum sentence for possessing heroin is seven years in prison or an unlimited fine.

Ms Zuke said yesterday: 'I could not understand what the problem was -- when the supervisor said it was because they could be used as drug paraphernalia I was completely shocked. 'I would imagine the vast majority of spoons sold by Sainsbury's are used for nothing more nefarious than stirring a cup of tea. Having to prove I was over 18 to buy them seemed total madness.'

Sainsbury's blamed the mistake on a problem with its stock-keeping units which provide a unique identifier for each product on the shelves. A problem with the system meant that it asked for identification automatically. A spokeswoman said: 'The self-scan system recognised the spoon's SKU as one for a knife. This had now been rectified.

'We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused. Our Think 25 policy is designed to ensure age-related products are sold safely.'

In October 2009, Emma Sheppard, 21, was asked for identification when buying spoons in a Tesco store in Evesham, Worcestershire. She was forced to leave the store without the 57p pack of five spoons because she did not have a passport or driving licence with her. Tesco later apologised for the mistake.

SOURCE





Let’s have a proper debate about the welfare state

Hooked on poverty porn, getting the unelected Lords to do their dirty work... there’s little progressive about today’s welfare-defenders

What is worse: elected politicians proposing to reform the welfare state, or unelected Lords, cheered on by liberals, unilaterally shooting down such reform? It’s the latter. Even if you aren’t a fan of Lib-Con plans to trim the welfare bill (I think it’s daft to imagine such trimming will reverse the economic downturn), you should be far more concerned by the patronising and profoundly undemocratic turn that the so-called radical side in this debate has taken. Today, the defenders of welfare are doing far more harm to what we might term progressive politics than the right-wingers seeking to rethink welfarism.

Yesterday, to the chagrin of liberal activists, the House of Lords failed to support a peer-proposed amendment to the government’s welfare reform bill. Having inflicted a triple defeat on the bill last week, by voting 224 to 186 against proposals relating to disability and incapacity allowances, the Lords had won a special place in the hearts of leftists opposed to the Lib-Cons. These unelected lords and ladies are ‘the only decent politicians left’, chirped one commentator. Another described them as ‘a blessing’. These observers will no doubt be disappointed that the Lords yesterday failed to deliver a fourth blow to the government’s plans, though hopefully they’ll have learned a lesson about how daft it is to rely on the whims of the rich and aloof when pursuing political agendas.

There are two problems with the notion that state welfare is so sacred it should never be reformed, even if that means getting the most undemocratic layer of the British political class to ringfence it from those grubby inhabitants of the elected Commons. Firstly, such an allergic reaction to the idea of having a serious debate about the size and shifting nature of state welfare means that the problems associated with welfarism – which are myriad – are never clarified, far less tackled. And secondly, calling on the unelected second chamber to fight the Commons over welfare is an insult to democracy and to the British public, who are reduced to the level of paupers who need good-hearted Lords to fight their battles and preserve their pennies.

You don’t have to be a fellow traveller of the Lib-Cons (I’ve never voted for either party) to recognise that the welfare system in Britain does need reform – radical reform. The problem with the government’s proposed reforms is that they’re driven by a penny-pinching mentality, designed to save the state cash. The real motivation behind welfare reform should be a humanist one – a recognition that intensive welfarism, the intrusion of the ‘caring state’ into every aspect of less well-off people’s lives, has damaged both individuals and communities and therefore should be questioned and challenged and, in part, done away with.

Of course, all civilised societies should provide for those who, for whatever reason, lack the capacity to feed and clothe and house themselves. Discretely distributed as a fund for those too poor or disabled to provide for themselves, welfare can be a good thing. The problem with the ever-growing welfare state in Britain is its permanency, the way it is now used to sustain, forever, huge swathes of people, including able-bodied people, and the impact that this has on people’s view both of themselves and their communities. When you’re encouraged to become reliant on the state rather than on your own wits or your own mates, your sense of individual resourcefulness declines, and your feeling of attachment to and reliance upon your community becomes corroded.

The social destructiveness of the cult of welfarism can best be seen in that part of welfare that is now most feverishly defended by liberal campaigners: the realm of incapacity and disability benefits. In recent decades, more and more people of working age have been redefined by the welfare state as ‘incapable’ of working or as disabled. This is, to say the least, curious at a time when we are healthier and longer-living than ever before. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Britain has one of the highest rates of incapacity/disability benefit-claiming in the Western world. Young people in Britain are more than twice as likely to claim sickness benefits as their Western European counterparts. Strikingly, there has been a big shift from the unemployment camp into the ‘incapable’ camp. In the 1980s, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit was nearly four times higher than the number claiming some kind of disability benefit; by 1997 the numbers were equal; today, the number claiming a disability benefit exceeds the number claiming unemployment benefit. Now, more than three million people are categorised as incapable of working, out of a non-working population of around five million.

Of course, there are many people who have serious impairments or illnesses that prevent them from working, and they should be provided for generously by society. But it’s pretty clear that, in recent decades, society has cynically cast the ‘incapacity’ net ever-wider, leading to more and more people effectively being rebranded as physically or mentally deficient rather than simply unemployed. That way, the unemployment stats can be massaged, and society’s failure to provide people with gainful employment can be redefined as an individual rather than a social failing – apparently it is because these people are weak, pathetic and ‘incapable’ that they cannot work, not because of the structural malaise of capitalist society and the lack of vision amongst those who govern it.

In a twisted irony, the leftists now fighting tooth-and-nail to protect incapacity/disability benefit from any criticism or reform are actually upholding a right-wing creation. Invalidity Benefit, which later became Incapacity Benefit, and which is now mixed together with various disability allowances, was first introduced under Ted Heath’s Tory government in 1971. The number of claimants grew exponentially under the Thatcher and Major governments in the 1980s and 90s – in 1981, 463,000 men and women were claiming invalidity/incapacity benefit; by the mid-1990s it was more than one million. The cynical rebranding of capable men and women as incapable was a useful tool for Tory governments that were throwing people out of work but which didn’t want the unemployment figures to look too shocking. It is remarkable that so-called progressives should now go to the wall to protect this cynical, Tory-invented idea that massive numbers of working men and women are actually too useless or mental or weak to work.

The end result of the spread of the concept of incapacity, and the relativistisation of the category of disability to include increasing numbers of people, is that individuals become both decommissioned and alienated. They are put out to pasture, told that they cannot work, which frequently becomes a self-fulfilling thing; and through their reliance on the faceless state, they become separated from their own communities, coming to be more dependent on the pity and favour of outsiders than on the support and tips of people they know and see every day.

Even worse than uncritically defending such a pernicious system is defending it in an undemocratic fashion. Today, the pro-welfare lobby, clearly disillusioned not only with the Commons but also with the dumb people who elect it, have turned to the unelected Lords to try to preserve the entire welfare state. Radical campaign groups and trade unions call on their members to ‘Adopt a Peer’ – that is, email a lord begging him to vote against government plans on the NHS and welfare – while commentators sing the praises of the peers, saying, yes, they might be ‘ennobled and stuck in an anachronistic institution’ but they are nonetheless willing to ‘speak up for the very poorest and sickest among us’.

A quick glance at history should be enough to shoot down the batty idea that the Lords are potential class warriors defending poor people’s welfare from evil elected officials. The constitutional crisis of 1909-1911 was brought about by the Lords’ refusal to back an early welfare package – Liberal prime minister Herbert Asquith’s ‘People’s Budget’ – and the Asquith government’s subsequent decision to override the Lords helped to define and bolster the ideal of democracy in Britain. Today’s welfare-defenders seem keen to turn the clock back, to revert to a time when the Lords, described by Thomas Paine as the ‘remains of aristocratical tyranny’, were expected to reprimand the Commons. Even if you do your peer-cheering in the name of standing up for ‘the very poorest and sickest’ (what’s with all the patronising Dickensian lingo?), the end result will be the same: the further concentration of moral authority and political power in the hands of a tyrannical few.

With their poverty-porn images of families too sick and destitute to care for themselves, and their love of Lords who stand up and make grandstanding speeches about ‘helping the poor’, today’s welfare-defenders are taking us into Downton Abbey territory – back to a pre-welfare state world of poor laws and posh pity where the very rich were pleaded with to help the lame and the weak. That is the essence of much modern welfare thinking. ‘Please, my lord, stop the evil politicians from taking away my grub and my blankets.’ Screw that. The less well-off are more than capable of looking after themselves, and don’t need to have democracy overturned in their name by unelected twits and their dizzy cheerleaders in the media.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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2 February, 2012

Useless British police put on the spot

'Three strikes' rule to tackle yob gangs: Police must act on complaints or face the sack

Police will no longer be able to ignore homeowners whose lives are being made a misery by yobs, the Home Secretary is set to announce. Once three separate complaints have been lodged, officers will have no option but to take action, Theresa May will say. The same will apply if five individuals from five different households in the same neighbourhood complain about the same issue.

If they still fail to respond, they can be hauled in front of a ‘crime commissioner’, who will have the power to fire chief constables.

Ministers hope the ‘community trigger’ system will halt a string of shocking cases where police and councils have failed to intervene to prevent homeowners being tormented.

They want to prevent a repeat of the case of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her disabled 18-year-old daughter Francecca – who had a mental age of four – when her cries for help went unheeded.

An inquest heard that yobs screamed obscenities at them, hurled stones and eggs at the windows, shoved dog excrement and fireworks through the letterbox, and threatened Miss Pilkington’s dyslexic son Anthony with a knife.

Despite receiving 33 desperate 999 calls in ten years, police said Miss Pilkington, 38, was ‘over-reacting’ and dismissed her as ‘low-priority’.

Unable to bear the torment any more, she decided death was her only escape, and killed herself and her daughter by setting fire to their car near their home in Barwell, Leicestershire, in October 2007.

A separate report by the police watchdog revealed officers were failing to visit tens of thousands of families whose lives are made a misery by louts. The Chief Inspector of Constabulary’s report said the true number of anti-social behaviour incidents could be twice as high as the 3.6million estimated by the Government in 2008-9.

In a speech in London today, Mrs May will say: ‘It’s too easy to overlook the harm that persistent anti-social behaviour causes. 'Many police forces, councils and housing providers are working hard, but I still hear horror stories of victims reporting the same problem over and over again, and getting no response.
Will police revert to Dutch protocol

‘These long-running problems – and the sense of helplessness that goes with them –can destroy a victim’s quality of life and shatter a community’s trust in the police. ‘The “trigger” will give victims and communities the right to demand that agencies who had ignored a problem must take action.’

The new power will target Community Safety Partnerships, which are joint panels of the police and local authority officials. It specifically deals with anti-social behaviour: low-level offending such as vandalism or intimidation.

Officers have in the past viewed it as a council job – leading to criticism they do not take bad behaviour seriously. But now either the police or council will be required to take steps to resolve a problem once it has reached the trigger stage, and reply to the complainant detailing a plan. Only ‘malicious’ complaints can be rejected.

From November, that reply will be copied to elected police and crime commissioners – who will be elected for the first time in November. These commissioners will have the power to fire under-performing chief constables.

SOURCE




‘A Significant Victory’: Atheists Lose Battle Over Jesus Statue Atop Montana Mountain

Last October, we reported about atheists’ attempts to have a Jesus statue removed from government-owned land on a Montana mountain. Now, months later, it seems non-believers have lost their battle to have the religious symbol banished. In a press release delivered this afternoon, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) announced:

"…today’s decision by the federal government to renew a lease that keeps in place a World War II memorial on a Montana mountain — a statue of Jesus — is a “significant victory” and represents a sound defeat for an atheist organization that challenged the memorial."

The Blaze previously reported that the statue was on U.S. Forest Service land and, thus, was being threatened by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a church-state separatist group. The Forest Service has teetered back and forth regarding whether the statue would be able to stay on federal land, as the group initially said that it would no longer permit a renewal contract last year. The Missoulian has more about this challenge:

"Last August, a Wisconsin atheist organization challenged the Forest Service permit, arguing it was an unconstitutional state endorsement of religion. The Forest Service initially opted to remove the statue, but suspended that decision for a public review."

In October, though, supporters received a small victory when the agency changed course. Now, following public support for the statue, the government has officially announced that the land will, again, be rented to the KOC.

“This decision by the National Park Service represents a significant victory in defense of the history and heritage of the region,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “We’re delighted that federal officials understood what we have argued all along — that this statue of Jesus does not convey any government religious endorsement of religion. Instead, this historically important memorial is designed to commemorate the sacrifice made by those killed in World War II.”

“The special-use permit that originally allowed a local chapter of the Knights of Columbus to install the memorial was granted in 1953, the Blaze’s Chris Santarelli originally reported. “The KOC installed the statue as a memorial to local veterans of World War II.”

The community, as corroborated by the massive movement in support of the statue, has revered the statue for decades and was intent on seeing its placement remain. The National Park Service announced today that it will renew the KOC permit for another 10 years and acknowledged the statue‘s importance to the region’s history.

“I understand the statue has been a long-standing object in the community since 1955, and I recognize that the statue is important to the community for its historical heritage based on its association with the early development of the ski area on Big Mountain,” proclaimed Chip Weber, the supervisor of Flathead National Forest.

SOURCE





Recruiting for the Church of Atheism??

Atheists in Minnesota stand firmly opposed to parents “indoctrinating” their children to believe in a higher power. So, like their counterparts in Colorado (among other localities), they’ve erected new billboards that make their anti-God messaging loud and clear. Only these atheists are taking a unique route: they’re using pro-life advertisements as the inspiration for their billboards.

According to the Christian Post, Minnesota Atheists, a group associated with American Atheists, recently erected the massive signs in Minneapolis. One of the ads reads, ”Please don’t indoctrinate me with religion. Teach me to think for myself.” Another says, ”We are all born without belief in gods. Learn how to be a born-again atheist.” Smiling babies are featured on the billboards, which will remain up until Feb. 19.

The purpose of the billboards is apparently to attract people who are already non-believers to become members of American Atheists and the local Minnesota Atheists groups. According to Eric Jayne, a board member and project leader at the local organization, his group wishes to curb ”the practice of indoctrinating young, impressionable minds with religious dogma that cannot be substantiated with evidence.”

The cute pictures of the babies that accompany the anti-God messages were inspired, according to August Berkshire, the president of Minnesota Atheists, by Prolife Across America, a Minneapolis-based group. This particular organization uses babies on its ads and billboards to support its efforts against the practice of abortion. Berkshire said:

“It’s (billboards) turning out to be a pretty popular way to get the message out. [Prolife Across America] use[s] a lot of images of children and that got us thinking: religious indoctrination begins with children as soon as they’re old enough to learn. If they weren’t given this indoctrination, they probably wouldn’t believe. It’s for people to realize, where did this religion come from? You weren’t born with it. It was taught to you. And it’s possible to unlearn it.”

While local church leaders disagree, some seem open to the debate that the signs is spawning. “We believe that people are actually born with a natural desire to connect to a higher power. So, the billboards are wrong, but if they stimulate some thinking — certainly no harm in that,” said Pastor Kevin McDonough, a faith leader at Church of St. Peter Claver, a house of worship located near one of the billboards.

According to the Star Tribune, Prolife Across America director Mary Ann Kuharski is fine with her group serving as the atheist campaign’s inspirational status. ”Imitation is the highest form of flattery,” she says, “They’re (babies) eye-catching. We can’t help noticing them. Frankly, they (atheist billboards) may be helping us. They’re still identifying babies for what they are, which is precious.”

SOURCE






God Bless the Hungarians

Hungary is almost broke. That is the country's great tragedy. It needs financial help from the other members of the European Union (EU), who are already helping EU states in financial difficulties, and from the IMF. But both the EU and the IMF refuse to come to Hungary's aid because they dislike the new Hungarian Constitution and a series of new laws that came into effect on January 1st.

Last week, the European Commission initiated legal proceedings against Hungary over its new constitution and legislation. It gave Hungary one month to enact changes with regard to the independence of the central bank, the judiciary and the national data protection authority, or else face the prospect of being fined by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the EU's supreme court. American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also voiced concern over democratic freedom in Hungary.

In April last year, the conservative Fidesz party won a landslide victory in the Hungarian Parliament. Fidesz, led by current Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, won over 52% of the votes and more than two thirds of the seats. The Conservatives owed their victory to the deep dissatisfaction of the Hungarians with the Social-Democrat MSZP which led the country since 2002 and has bankrupted its economy.

The MSZP is the successor of the former Communist Party which ruled Hungary until the end of the communist dictatorship in 1989. For the sake of national conciliation, the former Communists were left largely undisturbed when democracy was reintroduced in Hungary. Many members of the old Communist Party were allowed to keep their top positions in the civil service, the judiciary, the universities, the media and the army. Former communists who had enriched themselves by liquidating state assets were also left alone.

As in many other East European countries, the Communists rebranded themselves as Social Democrats. Like the former communist parties in several other East European countries, the MSZP was welcomed into the international networks of the West European social democrat parties. The MSZP even got to hold several high-ranking functions at the European Parliament and in the European Commission.

The Communists' rebranding tactics seemed to have worked. From 1994 to 1998 and from 2002 to 2010, the Hungarians voted the former Communists back into power. In September 2006, however, their reputation received a major blow when a tape was leaked of a private conversation in which the Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány could be heard admitting to party officials that he had lied to the nation. Gyurcsány said that the MSZP had won the elections by deliberately concealing how dramatic the economic situation in the country was. The leaking of the tape led to protest demonstrations by thousands of Hungarians who felt cheated by a party that had simply camouflaged its dictatorial core with democratic theatrics. The demonstrators were savagely beaten up by the police, but the Hungarians took revenge in last April's elections. The MSZP was trashed and fell to 19.3% of the popular vote from 49.2% four years earlier.

After the elections, Fidesz set out to do what it had promised the Hungarian electorate it would do: break the power of the old Communist elite. To this end, the Hungarian parliament adopted a new constitution. Its preamble is an ode to traditional values, patriotism, the family and freedom. It even mentions God, which undoubtedly annoys the EU elites in Brussels who refused any reference to God in their own constitution.

Although there is a strong case to be made for a woman's pregnancy not being in the purview of governments but a private matter between her physician and her, the Hungarian constitution protects human life from the moment of conception and, even though same-sex couples may legally register their partnership, defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The country's name is also changed from "Hungarian Republic" to "Hungary," and although Hungary remains a republic, the preamble contains references to the Holy Crown of King Stephen, the first king of Hungary.

The Constitution also refers to "the inhuman crimes committed against the Hungarian nation and its citizens during the National Socialist and Communist dictatorships." It explicitly mentions that the self-determination of Hungary was lost between March 19, 1944 (the date of the German invasion) and May 2, 1990 (the date of the first free elections in the post-Communist era), and asserts the invalidity of all legislation dating back to that period: "We do not recognize the Communist constitution of 1949 because it has served as a foundation of tyrannical rule. For this reason that legislation is hereby invalid."

Referring to the damage done by four decades of Communist rule, the constitution says that Hungary has "an eminent need of spiritual renewal since last century's developments have undermined moral values."

With its emphasis on traditional values, historic continuity, Christianity and the need for spiritual renewal, Hungary's constitution is an affront to the ruling liberal elites in the European Union and the world, who are hostile to Europe's Christian heritage and national traditions.

The New York based NGO Human Rights Watch criticized the Hungarian constitution, saying that it "could lead to efforts to overturn Hungary's abortion law and result in restrictions on abortion that would put a number of fundamental rights for women at stake." It also complained that, by defining marriage as a bond between a man and a woman, the constitution "denies LGBT people access to state protection for their families and relationships, and is inconsistent with Hungary's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Union Charter on Fundamental Rights."

Hungary has also angered the liberal elites in the West by curbing judicial activism. To this end the retirement age for judges has been lowered from 70 to 62 and the president of the Supreme Court is required to have at least five years' Hungarian judicial experience. This eliminates the incumbent who served for 17 years in the activist European Court of Human Rights.

With regard to the economy, the new Hungary has introduced a flat tax of 19% and has capped the budget deficit to a maximum of 3% of GDP. It is also merging the Hungarian central bank (MNB) with the institution that supervises commercial banks, thereby restricting the power of András Simor, the MNB governor. Simor, an economist who worked for the MNB during the Communist era, is an appointee of the previous MSZP government. While Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is not dismissing Simor, the new constitution wants the MNB governor to take on oath of fidelity to Hungary and its interests. The case is being used by the EU and the IMF to deny Hungary credit guarantees and to justify other sanctions.

Both institutions argue that Hungary has violated the central bank's independence. The European Commission also objects to the oath because the MNB governor is a member of the council of the European Central Bank – a neutral pan-EU body. José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission (and a former Maoist), said last week, as the Commission was initiating legal procedures against Budapest, that the Hungarian authorities had failed "to guarantee respect of EU law" and that the Commission is determined "to make sure that EU laws, both in letter and in spirit are fully respected [in Hungary]. We do not want the shadow of doubt on respect for democratic principles and values to remain over the country any longer."

"The independence of Hungary's central bank will be a precondition for a European Union and International Monetary Fund precautionary financial support program for the country," said Olli Rehn, the European Commissioner For Economic and Monetary Affairs.

In the European Parliament, Orbán was attacked for violating the fundamental values of democracy and freedom. Liberals, Greens and Socialist said that the new Hungarian constitution is an undemocratic document. Liberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt, and Green group leader Daniel Cohn Bendit both called on the EU to suspend Hungary's voting rights in the EU Council because its constitution is a "serious and persistent breach" of EU principles. Cohn Bendit, a former Communist, said that Orbán behaved the same way as Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Socialist group leader Hannes Swoboda said that Orbán is destroying the very freedoms that the Hungarian people fought for.

The threat that Hungary will not receive the loan of €20bn ($25bn), which it urgently needs to avoid bankruptcy after years of Socialist economic mismanagement, is forcing Orbán to appease his critics. He has promised to amend the measures to restrict the powers of the MNB and the early retirement of judges.

Last Saturday, however, the Hungarians made it clear that they are still standing behind Prime Minister Orbán. Over 100,000 people gathered in Budapest in support of the government. During the last century, the Hungarians played a prominent role in opposing Soviet tyranny. Today, they are taking the lead in opposing the European Union. "May God bless the Hungarians!" says the opening phrase of the new Hungarian constitution. May He, indeed.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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1 February, 2012

Non-Darwinist doctor refused job

A doctor was denied employment at a Norwegian hospital because he did not believe in the Theory of Evolution.

Saying, “we are quite far apart when it comes to a view of the world”, an Oslo University Hospital official claimed the doctor would not get the job “because I don’t think this will quite work.”

The psychiatrist, who wished to remain anonymous for his future professional career possibilities, told Christian newspaper Vårt Land, “Both I and colleagues reacted strongly to that such a justification could be allowed.”

“I therefore decided to bring the matter further before an independent body to verify this was unacceptable.”

The Equality and Discrimination Ombudsman subsequently found in favour of the doctor, saying he had been subject to discrimination.

Agreeing that considering views about the theory was legitimate for an employer, as it central to understanding how the human mind develops, the ombudsman nevertheless ruled the hospital had violated the Equal Opportunities Act by not giving other grounds for refusal.

The psychiatrist accused hospital officials of narrow-mindedness, saying, “It’s about tolerance for thinking differently, [...] and having more openness to other perspectives, which should be seen as a resource.”

“An employer should be allowed to ask about philosophy, even if they cannot handle the answer. The problem is how my view has been used as an argument to disqualify me as a professional. The refusal has not affected me, but it was an important matter of principle.”

SOURCE




Parents must have the right to spank their children to instil discipline, says Boris Johnson

The Mayor of London spoke after a senior Labour MP blamed his party’s partial ban on smacking children for last August’s riots.

Former education minister David Lammy called for a return to Victorian laws on discipline, saying working-class parents needed to be able to use corporal punishment to deter unruly children from joining gangs and wielding knives.

He claimed parents were ‘no longer sovereign in their own homes’ and feared that social workers would take their children away if they chastised them.

Labour’s 2004 law did not completely ban smacking, but said a smack should cause no more than a reddening of the skin.

Last night Mr Johnson supported Mr Lammy, saying the current law was ‘confusing’, meaning that parents do not know how far they can go in terms of smacking their children.

‘People do feel anxious about imposing discipline on their children, whether the law will support them,’ he told the Pienaar’s Politics programme on BBC Radio 5 Live.

'Obviously you don’t want to have a licence for physical abuse or for violence and that’s very important.’

The Mayor said he believed he had the support of Education Secretary Michael Gove.

‘I know that people will have their own views, but let me just say on the issue that’s been raised a lot of times with me; the issue of are you allowed to chastise, are you allowed to impose discipline?’

SOURCE





Pet-loving people haters in America

They sound a lot like Leftists and Greenies

People who rescue animals can be reluctant to believe anyone deserves the furry creatures. Some rescue groups think potential owners shouldn’t have full-time jobs. Others reject families with children. Some rescuers think apartment dwelling is OK for humans but not for dogs, or object to a cat’s litter box being placed in a basement. Some say no to people who would let a dog run around the fenced backyard “unsupervised,” or allow a cat outside, ever.

It used to be that people who wanted to get an abandoned or abused animal went to the local pound, saw one they liked, paid a small fee, and drove home with a new pet. Since the 1990s, however, the movement to reduce animal euthanasia and the arrival of the Internet have given rise to a new breed of rescuer. These are private groups, or even individuals, who create networks of volunteers to care for needy animals.

The new organizations take potentially adoptable pets out of the shelters and foster them, usually in private homes, until the right owner comes along. They control the fate of an increasing number of animals. In New York City, for example, almost 45 percent of the dogs and cats that come into the Animal Care & Control system are passed to one of more than 150 private rescue groups.

Groups like these have high standards for who gets to adopt. Applicants are sometimes subjected to an interrogation that would befit Michael Vick. After receiving this hostile treatment, several would-be pet owners told me, they got offended and gave up. Others push on, answering pages of questions (“As a dog ages, it often becomes incontinent and arthritic. How do you intend to handle your dog's age-related problems?”), supplying personal and veterinary references, and submitting to home inspections. Even after going through that ordeal, you can be told that you are unworthy for pet ownership, for reasons often left mysterious.

At this point, many frustrated animal lovers can commit an act they’d previously thought abhorrent: They buy a dog, cat, bird, or guinea pig from a pet store or breeder. I know because that’s what happened to me.

A few months ago during a Dear Prudence chat, I mentioned in passing how ridiculous some rescue groups were. When my family decided to get a second rescue dog, I felt it was my job to prove to the groups we contacted that I wasn’t a vivisectionist. Fed up, we decided to buy a puppy and found a lovely breeder, and our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Lily, has made us all ecstatic.

After I wrote this, I expected to be skinned alive by animal lovers. Instead, dozens of people posted comments about their own humiliation and rejection at the hands of these gatekeepers.

Katie wrote that she wanted to adopt a retired racing greyhound but was told she was not eligible unless she already had an adopted greyhound. Julie got a no from a cat rescue because she was over 60 years old, even though her daughter promised to take in the cat if something happened to Julie. Jen Doe said her boyfriend’s family lives on fenced farm property with sheep, but they weren’t allowed to adopt a border collie—whose raison d’être is herding sheep—because the group insisted it never be allowed off-leash. Philip was rejected because he said he allowed the dog he had to sleep wherever it liked; the right answer was to have a designated sleeping area. Molly, who has rescued Great Danes for more than 30 years, was refused by a Great Dane group because of “concern about my kitchen floor.”

My friend M., who looked into getting a family dog when her children were 6 and 9, had a similarly vexing experience. After she and her husband decided rescue was the right thing to do, they looked online and found a mutt named Rusty. Rusty’s rescue group was having an adoption day and the family made the long drive to see him. Adopters were told not to mingle with the animals, but that specific dogs would be brought to them. While Rusty was otherwise engaged, M. asked if they could look at some of the other dogs but almost all were declared not suitable for children.

As the family waited, the children sat on the ground and started writing in the dirt with sticks. A volunteer came over, alarmed. He reprimanded them, saying that if a dog sees a stick in a person’s hand it will expect that stick to be thrown, and it’s not fair to frustrate a dog.

Eventually, Rusty was brought over. He was a little hyper but everyone agreed he was fine. M. told the rescue group they wanted him, and when the family returned home they started buying dog supplies. But a call from the group aborted their plans. “We had a report about inappropriate behavior by your children,” M. was told, which meant they would not be allowed to adopt.

M. and her husband were astounded and the children were crushed. “We still really wanted a dog, so we did the wrong thing and went to a breeder,” M. says. They bought a Bernese Mountain Dog who basks in constant attention from M. and her husband, who both work at home. “He loves his life,” she says. “Too bad for Rusty.”

Let’s posit that many people who are drawn to humane work don’t have a particularly positive view of humanity. This natural aversion is exacerbated by years of helping abandoned, abused, and neglected animals, which means seeing the worst people do to innocent creatures. Unfortunately, a subset of these people who dislike people have become like admissions officers at selective colleges, rejecting applicants who don’t fit an ideal template.

Besides being as much fun to fill out as a Form 1040, many group’s applications are full of tricks and traps. Some are obvious. Anyone who gets to this question on one group’s application—“Do you plan to tie or chain the dog out at anytime?”—should know the answer is “never.” (I agree that dogs shouldn’t be chained outside). And you should know that the answer to this inquiry—“Have you ever had a cat declawed? Will you be declawing your new cat?”—is, “I would rip out my own fingernails with a pliers before declawing a cat.”

But other questions are conundrums. If you think having a dog would be great for your kids, or that your personal reproductive plans are not the business of strangers, then consider how to answer this question from a Labrador rescue group: “Are you considering having children within 10 years?” And who knows what number is disqualifying when answering this one: “How many steps are there to reach your front door?”

If an applicant manages to get approved, the adoption papers should be read carefully before signing. It turns out the contract often specifies the adopter is not the actual owner of the animal. Sure you’re responsible for the pet’s food, shelter, training, and veterinary care, but the organization might retain “superior title in said animal.” This means the group can drop in unannounced at any time for the rest of your pet’s life and seize Fluffy if it doesn’t like what it sees.

There are people in the rescue community who are aware that zealotry is damaging their cause. After all, since fewer than 20 percent of new pets come from rescue groups, driving down that proportion is self-defeating. Jane Hoffman is the president of the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, the organization that transports potential pets from animal control to private groups and provides training and other services. “You have two ends of the spectrum,” she says. “Pet stores will sell to anyone with the money. And then there are rescue group who won’t adopt to anyone. We need a happy medium.”

Being an animal rescuer can be a potent source of identity, combining salvation and self-sacrifice. But in recent years the ASPCA has seen that, for some people, this identity crosses over into pathology. Dr. Randall Lockwood, a senior vice president of the ASPCA, says that around 25 percent of the 6,000 animal hoarding cases reported in the United States each year involve purported rescuers, up from less than five percent 20 years ago.

“They are trying to do something good,” he says, “and they end up doing something bad.”

More HERE




Segregation is back in Knoxville, TN: Anti-Gay Senator kicked out of restaurant

Stacey Campfield and I don't agree on much, he thinks only gays spread AIDS, he supported a "Don't Say Gay" bill, and he probably believes in what I refer to as "socialist sexuality" or the idea that we should all have the same sexuality. So what? I deal with people I disagree with everyday and I don't discriminate against them.

If Stacey Campfield came to my restaurant or wanted to do business with me, I would treat him with the same respect I give all my customers. You would think this kind of common sense would be popular, you would think everyone does that, yet that's not always the case:

"“Martha Boggs, owner of the Bistro at the Bijou, said she ordered the controversial Republican legislator out of her restaurant Sunday in disgust over his recent remarks about the origin of AIDS. ‘He’s gone from being stupid to dangerous,’ Boggs said today. ‘It’s just my way of standing up to a bully.’ ‘He didn’t have much to say,’ Boggs said. ‘He left graciously.’”

What a hypocrite! These liberals preach tolerance, diversity and inclusiveness all day long yet look at how they treated Stacey Campfield, they threw him out like a black man trying to eat in the white section of a segregated restaurant in 1952. Where's the EEOC? Where's the NAACP? Oh right, Stacey is white and Christian so he doesn't have "La Raza" fighting for him. I guess he's the wrong raza.

Sorry Stacey, if you had been born brown that Bistro of BS would have been firebombed by now. I guess blonds don't always have more fun, specially when dealing with progressive supremacists. Hey Martha, what kind of cross will you be burning? One made of sage and potpourri?

Remember those "No Blacks, No Jews, No Dogs" signs they used to put outside restaurants? Will be the new sign for Bistro at the Bijou be "No Republicans, No Christians, No Insensitives"?

You want to know why some people hate gays? THIS IS WHY! All you had to do was shut up, serve your customer and take his money. Is that so hard? Didn't they teach that at Culinary School?

I'm an insurance salesman, you think I discriminate against my customers? You think I'm going to tell a liberal "you don't need life insurance"? You think I'm going to reject selling policies to people who voted for Obama? Of course not! I've gone into houses that smell like crap and I still manage to smile, listen to my customers, and see if I can help them.

Politics is politics and business is business, and although you do have the right to discriminate against certain people, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO!

That is why I'm calling freedom-lovers everywhere to Boycott the Bijou until Martha Boggs APOLOGIZES to Senator Stacey and treats him to a FREE DINNER in her restaurant.

You want to disagree with the Senator? Go ahead, but when he comes to your restaurant you serve him just like any other customer! Boycott the Bijou!

SOURCE

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

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

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

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Examining political correctness around the world and its stifling of liberty and sense. Chronicling a slowly developing dictatorship


BIO for John Ray


Sarah Palin is undoubtedly the most politically incorrect person in American public life so she will be celebrated on this blog


I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.


I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take chidren away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass


Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"


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


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


Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."


The Supreme Court of the United States is now and always has been a judicial abomination. Its guiding principles have always been political rather than judicial. It is not as political as Stalin's courts but its respect for the constitution is little better. Some recent abuses: The "equal treatment" provision of the 14th amendment was specifically written to outlaw racial discrimination yet the court has allowed various forms of "affirmative action" for decades -- when all such policies should have been completely stuck down immediately. The 2nd. amendment says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed yet gun control laws infringe it in every State in the union. The 1st amedment provides that speech shall be freely exercised yet the court has upheld various restrictions on the financing and display of political advertising. The court has found a right to abortion in the constitution when the word abortion is not even mentioned there. The court invents rights that do not exist and denies rights that do.


Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".


One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.


It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.


The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds