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

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

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31 October, 2010

Centrist British Prime Minister won’t make me a Minister... I’m a white, married, Home Counties Christian, says Tory MP

A new Tory MP has made a scathing attack on David Cameron for pro­moting women and people from the ethnic minorities over ‘white, Christian, married’ men.

John Glen, the party’s former head of research, said his background effectively ruled him out for a min­isterial job under Mr Cameron. He said: ‘I don’t anticipate any early calls to Government. I’m a white, Christian, married bloke from the Home Counties so I probably don’t fit the description of what the leadership wants at the moment.’

The Salisbury MP, one of 147 new Tory MPs elected in May, should on paper be a potential high-flier in the Commons after running the respected Conservative Research Department following the 2005 General Election.

Previous Tory research chiefs who have gone on to top posts include Andrew Lansley, now the Health Secretary, and Chris Patten, who served as Conservative Party Chairman under John Major’s Government.

Mr Glen, 36, also accused Mr Cameron of ‘vetoing’ his bid to be Tory ­candidate three years ago and complained how he was initially left off the party’s controversial ‘A-list’ of fast-tracked candidates. And the Oxford-educated MP appeared to lash out at new Tory colleagues trying too hard to get noticed and ‘racing around and annoying everyone’.

Mr Glen said: ‘What is important is that you don’t lose your soul along the way. I’d rather be a damn good constituency MP and be known to speak the truth than someone who has got on the ladder too soon and is not experienced or able enough to deal with the pressure. I’ve noticed some colleagues out to make a name for themselves.’

His remarks, in an article for the Commons in-house journal The House Magazine, will revive the rows over Mr Cameron’s determination to rebrand his party by fast-tracking women and ethnic-minority parliamentary candidates over traditional Tory ‘pin-striped’ men prior to May’s General Election.

It led to the famous ‘Turnip Taliban’ revolt when Tories in South-West ­Norfolk unsuccessfully tried to ­deselect candidate Liz Truss over her failure to declare an earlier affair with married Tory MP Mark Field.

After the Election, many local activists who resented the ‘A-list’ priority candidates felt vindicated when a number failed to win. Five openly gay candidates were not elected, two of whom – David Gold in Eltham and Mark Coote in Cheltenham – were standing in seats pencilled in by Tory high command as easy wins.

Mr Glen complained that his political career suffered a ‘blow’ when he failed to be included on the first round of A-list candidates.

But even after he got on to a later priority list, he said the Tory leader blocked his bid to be the party’s candidate in Henley in 2008 – the safe seat vacated by Boris Johnson when he became London Mayor. Mr Glen said he was rejected even though his wife-to-be lived in the Oxfordshire town. Mr Glen wrote that ‘to his immense credit, David Cameron later apologised for what happened’.

However, he also complained that after Mr Cameron became party leader in December 2005, his career at Tory HQ ‘started to go wrong’ and that he was not appreciated by Steve Hilton, the new leader’s director of strategy and image guru.

‘I sensed that my days would be numbered, and in my early encounters with Steve Hilton and members of David Cameron’s office, I sensed a lack of esteem for what I could bring to the table,’ he said.

The MP also attacked the decision by close Cameron ally Francis Maude, now a Cabinet Office Minister, to ­abolish the Conservative Research Department as ‘very short-sighted’.

Last night, a fellow Conservative MP privately accused Mr Glen of ‘sour grapes’, saying that out of more than 100 Ministers in the Coalition, only 19 were women and only ‘a handful’ were from ethnic minorities.

SOURCE





The three-page health and safety form which is paralysing Britain's police

The questionnaire is only three pages long yet nothing illustrates more effectively how health and safety regulations have blighted the emergency services.

Last week, former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner David Gilbertson wrote about the corrosive effect of the ‘risk avoidance’ culture that now takes precedence over public duty. As Mr Gilbertson explained, the problem lies with the RA1, the emergency services’ risk-assessment form which is used to identify potential dangers of any operation.

And two episodes this week illustrate his point. At the inquest into the 7/7 London bombings, in which 52 people died, firefighters were forced to defend their decision not to enter a Tube tunnel until ‘protocols’ had been observed.

And at another inquest in Kettering, Northants, last Thursday, it was revealed that two men drowned in an icy lake as firefighters stood by, unable to help because they had only ‘basic water awareness training’. The fire services have a version of the RA1 form, as do each of the different police forces.

The Metropolitan Police’s RA1 requires officers to assess a checklist of 238 possible hazards before conducting any sort of planned operational activity, such as security at a football match, or any operation that is spontaneous but requires the intervention of a senior officer, such as a bombing or a riot.

The Mail on Sunday has obtained one of these forms, which is not made available under the Metropolitan Police Freedom of Information Publication Scheme. It is an astonishing document which covers every conceivable eventuality – and more.

The potential hazards are divided into 13 categories including the place in which the operation will take place (Access and Place of Work), the means by which officers will travel to their operation (Transport) and even the threat posed by the required uniforms (Work Equipment).The senior officer must tick the relevant boxes, fill out an inventory of ‘risk activities’ (RA2), calculate levels of risk (RA3) and submit their recommendation (RA4) for the assessment to be confirmed and signed.

According to the RA1 form, potential dangers of ‘uncomfortable seating’, ‘slippery surfaces’, ‘sunburn’ and ‘passive smoking’ must all be considered. One senior police officer, who asked not to be named, said: ‘The thing is they have thought of every possible danger you could ever imagine.

‘With uncomfortable seating, for instance, it might be that an officer is on an operation which will require hours of watching and staying in the same place. With sunburn, if you are policing something like the Notting Hill Carnival for 12 hours it could potentially be a problem.

‘There’s nothing they haven’t thought of so the risk of “fluid injection” or “HIV” – which is very real if you are raiding a drug den – is on the same form as “traffic equipment/cones etc”. It’s the same with equipment, if you haven’t got access to the right transport, officers might have to take their riot gear on the bus with them, which is very heavy and could potentially hurt their back.’

Every department in the police force now has a risk assessment advisor. Every operation has a file opened, every file should have an RA1, two, three and four. The forms must be kept for ten years in case of any legal action.

The unnamed officer added: ‘There is an entire department processing the RA1s. Every one has to be signed off by a commander or chief constable. Technically, if you have got bombs going off you should complete these forms before sending your officers in. However, it’s a grey area. The line would be that you must complete one “wherever practicable”.

‘The difficulty is that it’s a question of judgment. Are you likely to save lives without one of the forms being completed? In a situation like that, you would probably not fill in the form and account for your actions in your subsequent report.

‘For instance, if a bomb goes off in the Tube, you would send in your officers but fill in the form before sending in forensics. But the thing with these forms is that it places the onus on the senior officer to fill it out. And if you don’t, you will have to explain why you haven’t.’

If it is deemed that a senior officer has not done enough to identify potential risks they face legal action. In 2003, then Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir John (now Lord) Stevens and his predecessor Lord Condon faced prosecution for alleged breaches of health and safety rules after two incidents in which officers fell through roofs while pursuing suspected burglars. Both were acquitted.

SOURCE






Sixty-Five Years of Circling the Drain: Happy Birthday, UN!

Its founders would be disgusted at the undemocratic cesspool the UN has become

This week, 65 years ago, the United Nations officially came into existence. It has experienced ups and downs, but never has looked to be a greater a failure than it does today. Its founders would be amazed at the Frankenstein creation that now sits on Manhattan’s East River.

The horrors of World War II had led statesmen from countries great and small to devise a council of nations to prevent the worst excesses of international conduct. An admirable ideal, but it has not worked out that way. The world body has built-in flaws which a changing world has made worse.

First: the General Assembly is not a democratic body. Member states represent not people, but governments, many of them squalid dictatorships. As a result, lack of democracy and human rights is no barrier to UN membership and participation.

At its founding this mattered less, since most UN members then (other than the Soviet and Arab blocs) were democracies. But democracies have been a minority within the UN since 1958. The democratic wave in Eastern Europe and Latin America following the Cold War has not only receded in some cases, but was in any case too small to alter this fact.

Second: the UN system is organized into blocs, of which the largest is the so-called Non-Aligned bloc. The policy of this bloc is largely determined by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, which includes the 22 member states of the Arab League. Very few of the OIC’s members can be considered functioning democracies. This bloc, and subsets within it, connive to render the UN impotent.

For example: no discussions are held, resolutions passed, or action taken on China’s obliteration of life and culture in Tibet. The UN General Assembly cannot even muster a simple majority merely to condemn the slaughter of Christians and animists in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Third: the Security Council is beholden to the veto power of five very different permanent members. Undoubtedly, this prevents the UN from doing much that’s wicked, but also most that’s decent. The rare occasions on which the UN came to anyone’s rescue — South Korea in 1950 and Kuwait in 1991 — were made possible by a Soviet boycott (never repeated) in one case, and a rare abstention by China in the other.

Otherwise, little else of serious import gets passed — or even discussed. Russia and China shield Iran from serious sanctions over its illegal nuclear weapons program. China and Arab blocking of action over Sudan’s depredations in Darfur, which have killed hundreds of thousands over the past decade, prevents any movement there.

Even when the Security Council decides on something — like disarming Saddam Hussein — action to achieve this aim can still be frustrated by subsequent vetoes.

Other UN bodies, like the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), reflect these adverse conditions. Established in 2006 to replace the corrupt and ineffective Human Rights Commission, the HRC has proved no better, and is arguably worse. Non-democratic African and Asian regimes exercise an unbreakable controlling majority of 26 of its 47 seats. It is these dictatorships that set the Council’s agenda and determine its vote. In four years, the HRC has closed off investigation of the worst human rights abuses in Belarus, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

In these circumstances, democracies can change the UN only so far. The Reagan administration, for example, pressured the UN through the purse-strings by withholding dues, and withdrew from corrupt bodies like UNESCO. But such efforts need to be sustained when the UN reverts to worst practice. In any event, joining the jackals, as if that could somehow tame their appetites, is worse than useless. It merely lends legitimacy that would have been better denied. The Obama administration took the U.S. into the HRC last year in the declared hope of effecting change. It didn’t. One month after the Obama administration joined the HRC, it terminated investigation into human rights abuses in Congo. In May, Libya joined the HRC. The Obama administration’s objections were simply ignored.

There is another way. The U.S., which provides a quarter of the UN budget, should consider some options. It could hold the UN to performance standards before disbursing funds. It could withdraw from irredeemable bodies like the HRC. It could back a new caucus of democratic nations. It could reallocate funds to external initiatives that actually do some good. But who expects the Obama administration to do any of these things?

SOURCE




Tea party candidates versus Democrat sleazebags

"Those who live in glass houses ...." Comment below by Ann Coulter

With the media sneering about the Tea Party candidates being a bunch of nuts, how about we take a look at some of the Democrats running this year?

We've got Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, who personally presided over the housing crash after getting that gay prostitution business behind him. Of course, Frank's actions are nothing compared to Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul's alleged participation in a college prank. Now, THERE'S a scandal!

California Sen. Barbara Boxer refuses to say whether a newborn baby is a human life. When Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., asked her on the Senate floor a few years ago whether she believed a baby born alive has a constitutionally protected a right to live, Boxer was stuck for an answer. Her nonresponsive replies included these:

"I support the Roe v. Wade decision. ...

"I think when you bring your baby home, when your baby is born -- and the baby belongs to your family and has all the rights. ...

"Define 'separation' ...

"You mean the baby has been birthed and is now in its mother's arms? ...

"The baby is born when the baby is born. That is the answer to the question. ...

"I am not answering these questions! I am not answering these questions!"

(Also, I think she said: "Please call me 'senator.'")

That's not Patty Murray-stupid, but it's still pretty stupid. How many late-term abortions are you planning to get, Californians, that it's worth being represented by such a cretinous woman?

Even if you are under the misimpression that Boxer's Republican opponent, Carly Fiorina, is somehow going to outlaw abortion in California, Carly will cut your taxes so much that you'd be able to fly to Sweden for all your abortions and still come out ahead!

Liberals are indignant that Sarah Palin writes speech notes to herself on her hand. This week, Alex Sink, the Democratic candidate for governor in Florida, was slipped a debating point by her makeup artist, texted by a campaign aide in violation of the rules during a debate with her Republican opponent, Rick Scott.

Oh, those thick Tea Party candidates!

Last weekend, Illinois governor Pat Quinn -- Rod Blagojevich's running mate -- stood silently as his supporter, state Sen. Rickey Hendon, blasted Quinn's Republican opponent, Bill Brady, as "idiotic, racist, sexist, homophobic."

Hendon has repeatedly made headlines over the past few years for his inappropriate behavior toward female colleagues. Once -- during a Senate debate -- he asked Sen. Cheryl Axley if her hair was naturally blond and then publicly propositioned her.

Another time, Hendon tackled Rep. Robin L. Kelly, knocking her to the ground after a House-Senate softball game she had come to watch in office attire.

Of the impeccable Brady, Hendon wailed: "If you think that women have no rights whatsoever, except to have his children, vote for Bill Brady. If you think gay and lesbian people need to be locked up and shot in the head, vote for Bill Brady."

Even the Chicago press was shocked by this, calling on Quinn to apologize. Quinn has "renounced" Hendon's remarks, but refused to apologize.

But watch out for the Tea Party candidates! There are some real loose cannons in that bunch.

Also last week, Rep. Ron Klein, Democrat of Florida, hysterically claimed he had been "threatened" by one of the Vietnam Veteran bikers supporting his Republican opponent, Allen West.

The man who had allegedly "threatened" Klein is 60 years old and goes by the terrifying name of ... "Miami Mike." Mike told the Miami Herald that he had simply e-mailed Klein, saying that he deserved to be voted out of office and, in addition, he needed "a good ass-kicking, which I'd be more than happy to do even though I'm a lot older than you."

As Miami Mike said: "A threat? Give me a break. He cannot be scared of what I wrote. If he is, he is just a real baby."

Apparently so. Klein turned Mike's e-mail over to the Capitol police, where they promptly burst out laughing and then ordered framed copies of the e-mail.

Speaking of little girls in pink party dresses, Keith Olbermann has repeatedly claimed that Allen West "disgraced his uniform." Weirdly, he never gives details of how he thinks West did that. (Maybe Olbermann could check on war-zone protocol with fake-Vietnam War veteran Dick Blumenthal, who's running for the Senate from Connecticut by lying about having served in Vietnam.)

As a colonel in Iraq, West was interrogating an Iraqi terrorist who knew about a planned ambush. Unable to get him to talk, West shot a gun near the terrorist's head, whereupon the frightened but unharmed detainee spilled the beans.

Because of that, West's men were able to capture a potential attacker and identify future ambush sites. There were no further attacks on West's men.

As West later told The New York Times, "There are rules and regulations, and there's protecting your soldiers." He said, "I just felt I'd never have to write a letter of condolence home to a 'rule and regulation.'"

When the Army considered court-martialing West, thousands of letters poured in defending West and thanking him for what he had done. Ninety-five members of Congress signed a letter to the secretary of the Army in support of West. No court-martial was ever convened.

Liberals won't say that John Phillip Walker Lindh disgraced his country. Washington Sen. Patty Murray thinks Osama bin Laden is a swell guy for building "day care centers" in Afghanistan. But they say a hero like Allen West "disgraced his uniform" by saving the lives of American soldiers.

Yeah, the Tea Party candidates are a real embarrassment.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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30 October, 2010

At last Britain's woken up to the grotesque irony that so many on welfare are better off than hard working families...

Boris Johnson wants David Cameron’s job, and there is almost nothing London’s ­Mayor will not say or do to get it. On Thursday, he ­delighted Labour and enraged fellow-­Conservative ministers by declaring on BBC Radio ­London: ‘We will not accept a kind of ­Kosovo-style ­social cleansing of London. ‘On my watch, you are not going to see thousands of families evicted from the place where they have put down roots.’

This was Johnson’s response to the ­Government’s plans to cap housing ­benefit for every family in the land at £21,000 a year (or £400 a week).

He has since sought to fudge his views, blathering that he ­supports the Government’s benefit reforms. But no one ­seriously doubts that the Mayor has ­chosen to defy Downing Street in order to appease his own constituency.

Even by understated official statistics, more than a third of today’s Londoners were born in another country, ­so Britain’s ­capital has become an international city or a ­foreign one, according to your point of view.

Many of its lower-paid residents receive welfare payments including housing ­benefits. If the Government imposes its planned cuts, such people will become implacable foes of the Tories, if they are not already.

Implausibly, Boris Johnson is making common cause with the Left-wing ­commentariat, who are spitting with rage about housing benefit. ‘Do they know what they are doing?’, Polly Toynbee fulminated in the Guardian this week. Under a headline of ­grotesque hyperbole which disgustingly referred to a ‘final solution’, she asked of the Coalition: ‘Are they incompetent bunglers or do they mean to clear low-earners out of the ­country’s prosperous districts? ‘This will become a cut that brands this Government… so extreme and random as to who will be evicted that the political noise will rise to ear-splitting decibels.’

In the case of housing benefit, the ­Toynbee-Johnson argument is that ­London is an extraordinarily expensive city, in which the poor must have ­assistance to live, unless we want to expel them.

This is where the Mayor’s ‘Kosovo’ taunt springs from. Humanitarian ­considerations aside, many relatively humble jobs, from bus-driving to street-cleaning, must be done by somebody. Since their wages will not cover private-sector ­London rents, it is in the public interest for the public purse to help with their housing costs.

Some of this is true. But the foes of reform ignore a critical truth: like all things, housing benefit must stop somewhere. The numbers have gone crazy. Some families are costing the taxpayer not £20,000 a year, but £30,000, £40,000, even in one supreme case £104,000 a year.

Any working citizen willing to pay even £20,000 to rent a ­property — which is not a deductible expense — would need to be a higher-rate ­taxpayer and commit almost £40,000 of his income to do so.

Do Boris Johnson and Polly Toynbee want us to house those who cannot afford their own accommodation at a cost which no middle manager or police superintendent or even junior banker could afford? Yes, they do, and their view is — to borrow a favourite Boris word — bonkers.

The £21 billion national cost of housing benefit for people of working age has risen by ­£5 billion in the past five years. David Cameron says the budget is out of control. Most of ­Britain, the hard-working families whom Gordon Brown so often cited but cynically pillaged, wholeheartedly agrees.

When the Exchequer pours money into the private market on this scale, it fuels demand, inflating still further the shocking cost of homes in Britain. Unless the Chancellor ends the state’s unlimited liability to house people wherever they choose to pitch camp, as part of his crusade to roll back the ­welfare system, there is no ­prospect of reducing our awesome national deficit.

We know that bankers’ follies triggered the financial crisis, but these merely exposed the scale on which Britain has been living beyond its means. The Exchequer has been ­giving sums of money to less well-off people, the underprivileged as they used to be called, that are far greater than the country can afford. Now the compassion racket has hit the buffers.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt received a barrage of abuse from the Left, and was denounced on the airwaves for a supposed ‘gaffe’, for suggesting last month that before ­having large families, people should consider whether they can afford them. Yet to most people not living on benefits, Hunt was stating the obvious.

Why do most mothers confine themselves to two or three ­children? Because they do not think they can afford decently to rear more. This is honourable as well as sensible.

Yet the entire welfare system, including housing benefit, is run on the basis that almost unlimited assistance is ­provided in accordance with the size of a recipient’s family. If you have four, five or six children, you will be allocated more generous accommodation or larger private rental subsidy than if you have only one or two. This may be humane, but removes the smallest incentive towards responsible family planning.

In every supermarket we see teenage mothers — many of them single women — with pushchairs, for whose lifestyle choice we pay the bills.

Most of us warmly applaud a government which, at last, is telling beneficiaries of welfare: your rights are not unlimited. Your actions will have consequences. If you choose to have a large family on a small income, you will pay a price for doing so which may include missing out on a new flat-screen TV.

Under the terms of the ­Government’s proposed new housing benefit rules, subsidy will be capped at £400 a week for a four-bedroom house; £340 for a three-bedroom one; £290 for a two-bedroom; £250 for a one-bedroom dwelling.

In the eyes of most of us, these are still very large sums of money. They may not make it possible for people to live in Westminster or Chelsea, but few of us regard it as a civil right to be handy for Harrods.

Moreover, the cap applies only to accommodation provided in the private rental market, and not to publicly-owned housing — of which there is still a large stock in London.

Social lobbyists claim that imposing these new limits next April could result in 82,000 evictions from central London, imposing special hardship on children obliged to move school. I shall be astonished if such a large enforced migration proves necessary. But in any event, most of us take for granted the necessity to move home if our circumstances change.

Most of London’s young ­middle classes now live south of the Thames or east of the City, because they ­cannot afford the sort of homes in which their parents lived, closer to the ­centre. Nobody seriously ­suggests this is a social injustice. The new generation is ­simply adjusting to economic realities.

Leftist hysteria about the Coalition’s spending cuts, which may spill over on to our streets if union leaders and Guardian columnists have their way, is founded upon a demented belief that Britain can continue indefinitely writing open-ended cheques to the less well-off.

They ignore the fact that, even if George Osborne achieves his full programme of spending reductions, in 2015 Britain’s budget will be ­marginally higher than it is today, albeit without taking account of inflation.

The proposed half-million shrinkage of the state workforce — which causes relentless hand-wringing on the BBC — will remove only half of the extra million public sector employees recruited by Gordon Brown over the past decade.

There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Polly Toynbee and her kind in their concern for Britain’s underclass, though the charge of champagne socialism sticks pretty hard on anyone who, like herself, owns a villa in Tuscany and ­educated her children at private schools.

But David Cameron’s Government is surely right to fight such people to a finish in the battle to curb the excesses of the Welfare State. We need more competition at every level of society and a stronger link between effort and reward....

There are bound to be cries of anguish from the losers and their Labour Party shop stewards. But it is dismaying to see a prominent Tory such as London’s Mayor ­lending comfort to the other side.

The wife of one of his old school headmasters said to me some years ago, when first he gained fame: ‘Boris Johnson will never get to the very top, because he is always playing to the gallery.’

Boris is a ­brilliant ‘turn’, beloved by many people who do not have to live or work with him. But he is not, never has been, and never will be a serious person like David ­Cameron. Johnson’s cleverness is devoted to the single purpose of manic self-promotion.

He is a chancer, albeit a witty and talented one. That is why he broke ranks with the Prime ­Minister on Thursday’s Radio London ­programme, and why he may well lob more such grenades in the future.

Cameron is taking a huge political risk in the national interest, while London’s Mayor seeks to advance, or at least protect, his own career. I know which of the two I want to run Britain, and it is not Boris.

SOURCE





The retired nurse who was the mastermind behind a vicious and ruthless IRA-style gang of animal rights fanatics

To her neighbours in Littlehampton, Sarah Whitehead was a pleasant, if slightly dotty, former nurse. While surrounding homes in the West ­Sussex town were well-kept, the 52-year-old let her garden become overgrown — providing ­private sanctuary, she said, for all manner of unwanted pets, from guinea pigs to rescued dogs.

By day, the dark-haired woman was often seen out walking her dogs with a younger, blonde companion — her lesbian partner. By night, she was heard talking to her assorted animals in the garden.

‘She was always polite and would nod hello,’ says one neighbour. ‘We knew she kept loads of creatures in her back garden, but she really did try to keep herself to herself. She was a bit odd — but no odder than half the folk you meet.’

To add to the impression she gave of being a harmless, ­quintessentially English eccentric, she was also known by the nickname ‘Mumsy’ to her wide circle of young friends, who ­visited from around the country.

But all this was a cynical, well-rehearsed sham. For there was ­nothing remotely maternal about Sarah ‘Mumsy’ Whitehead. From her home, where she used sophisticated computer technology to plan attacks, Whitehead was one of the key figures behind a ­shadowy group of animal rights fanatics who waged a campaign of terror against anyone connected — however tenuously — to any forms of testing on animals.

In a network that stretched from southern England to Europe and the U.S., Whitehead was part of an ­alliance of extremists who dug up human remains, smeared enemies as paedophiles and even targeted ­couriers and caterers supplying Home Office-licensed laboratories.

This weekend, as Whitehead begins a six-year jail sentence for the ­campaign of terror (and she is already complaining to prison officers about being made to wear leather shoes) the full details of her double life can be revealed for the first time.

Whitehead’s capture — along with the jailing of former tailor Greg Avery, another leading activist — has ­provided an unprecedented insight into the secret world of these fanatics, who for years have evaded arrest by operating in ‘cells’ and undergoing extensive training in how to avoid police surveillance.

‘They studied the structures of the IRA and also held regular training sessions at safe houses, where they were told how to spot undercover officers and ensure they weren’t being followed,’ says Andy Robins, the dog-loving detective who arrested Mumsy and her followers after a five-year undercover operation, codenamed Achilles.

‘Sarah Whitehead was a corrupting influence on younger members,’ adds Robins. ‘She was a mother figure to some of the others, hence the ­nickname. But she was also utterly committed to her cause.’ All the youngsters worked alongside Whitehead in Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), a seemingly respectable pressure group formed in 1999. SHAC volunteers even became a feature of the British High Street, where Whitehead and her fellow ­volunteers collected funds and tried to recruit new members.

Up and down the country, volunteers also distributed shocking ­pictures (later found, in fact, to include material from illegal labs in the Middle East) of alleged cruelty at Huntingdon Life Sciences, the ­subject of SHAC’s increasingly aggressive campaign.

Employing 16,000 people, Huntingdon is the largest private company involved in testing medicines and chemicals on animals, with its global headquarters in Cambridgeshire. The company says that its research breakthroughs have saved and enhanced the lives of countless human beings.

Publicly, Whitehead and other ­members of the group preached non-­violent protests against Huntingdon. But privately, they were secretly ­plotting ‘operations’ — including fire-bombings and acid attacks — on all aspects of its business, with the aim of forcing it to close down.

The strategy was straightforward: any businesses with any connection to Huntingdon, including even sandwich delivery men and cleaning firms, were warned in telephone calls to sever all ties.

If the warnings went unheeded, anonymous letters were sent to the neighbours of these ordinary businessmen and women, warning that they were convicted paedophiles and could pose a threat to children. Mud stuck. Some Huntingdon employees were forced to leave their homes. In what amounted to blackmail, the targets were offered a deal: stop working with Huntingdon and your name will be removed from ­websites and the attacks will stop. Facing ruin, many local businesses did just that.

The violence worked. SHAC was raising £3,000 a week in street ­donations alone, meaning Mumsy Whitehead and leaders of the group could be full-time activists.

Huntingdon was in meltdown, with staff leaving and suppliers refusing to deliver. The share price collapsed — from £300 in the 1990s to 3p in 2001. Even banks refused to lend money to Huntingdon, fearing violent ­repercussions and attacks on staff.

But with the exception of a handful of arrests during demonstrations, the people behind the campaign remained elusive, as Mumsy and her confederates were using computer encryption programmes to communicate and co-ordinate attacks.

With the attacks escalating, ­culminating in the case of a guinea pig breeder having a relative’s remains dug up from her grave, a ­special police unit — led by Andy Robins, a veteran investigator of ­serious crimes — was set up in 2005 to try to penetrate the group.

Surveillance of a safe house in East Peckham, Kent, provided the first ­tantalising breakthrough: this was the venue for secret meetings of animal rights fanatics from around the world. Police were astonished as they recorded more than 300 activists arriving at the building, which was surrounded by open Kent countryside.

There, the activists — from the U.S. and throughout Europe — pooled their resources, sharing knowledge about the latest police tactics as part of a global strategy to keep ahead of the authorities.

Then, crucially, further surveillance led police to the secret hideout of the group’s inner sanctum — and the place where ‘strategy meetings’ were held every three months to plan attacks on the latest targets. These took place at a secluded ­cottage in Little Moorcote, near Fleet in Hampshire, which was owned by Greg Avery, the founding member of SHAC who was convincted last year for his part in the ­conspiracy and is now serving a ten-year jail sentence.

Under cover of darkness, police experts installed ­bugging devices and video cameras to ­discover whether the group was as non-­violent as they publicly ­professed to be. Liaising with the FBI, who were also investigating American activists funded from Hampshire, the UK police team then sat back, watched their video screens — and waited.

The breakthrough came on Easter Sunday, 2008 — the date of a crucial strategy meeting. As well as ­hearing details of attacks being discussed, encrypted emails were also decoded.

One, which referred to the ­activities of related animal rights group the Animal Liberation Front, read: ‘Last night a team of ALF ­volunteers offered their “free vehicle servicing” to a farm situated in a small Dorset village. A large and fairly new animal transporter used for taking animals to their deaths was given a complete makeover.’

The email continued: ‘All tyres slashed, sand poured into the gas tank, locks glued, windscreen ­wipers glued to windscreen, door mirrors covered in black spray paint, windscreen covered in the word “scum” and the rest of the lorry left with ­messages such as “killers” and “ALF watching you”.’

While the involvement of Avery was known to the police — he had ­previously been arrested with bomb-­making equipment — this was the first time Mumsy’s importance became clear. They discovered the other leaders refused to make any decisions unless she was present.

And her view was straightforward: that all methods, including violence and intimidation, should be deployed to drive Huntingdon out of business. In one taped conversation, Whitehead described the ­people working there as ‘animal abusers with blood on their hands’, adding that she was happy to put the welfare of ­animals ahead of people.

Nor did she confine herself to attacks against Huntingdon. In a recent case, she stole Freddy, a Beagle puppy, from a nearby back garden, claiming the animal was being abused by his owners. In reality, the complaints about the dog were from a neighbour who hated animals. The RSPCA had even checked on Freddy, declaring him a healthy and happy puppy, after he was bought as a pet for a little boy and his twin ­sister. Whitehead, who was ­convicted of that theft, refuses to this day to say what she did with Freddy.

As well as plotting attacks with other members of what police call SHAC’s ‘secret inner sanctum’, Mumsy was also given a crucial role in recruiting ‘fresh skins’ — new activists, many of them teenagers in search of a cause. At recruitment stalls set up across the country, Mumsy’s age and unthreatening appearance were ­useful in reassuring recruits that the campaign was entirely legal and respectable.

Among them was Alfie Fitzpatrick, the wealthy son of a company ­director who had studied at private schools in Switzerland and lived in a sprawling home with his parents near Solihull.

After agreeing to give money to the cause, 21-year-old Alfie often met Mumsy and other leaders of the group at their secret headquarters in Hampshire. He was one of five younger activists sentenced this week with Whitehead.

While he was not part of the violent attacks plotted by the leadership, which also involved fire-­bombing homes of those connected to Huntingdon, Alfie was part of a sophisticated system that groomed the next generation of urban terrorists. Indeed, when police raided the safe house, they removed so many boxes of files and computer equipment that they had to open a mothballed police ­station to store all the evidence. The records detailed plans to recruit the next generation of ­activists and even revealed that the funding for U.S. operations has all come from Britain.

So is Mumsy contrite? Hardly. In a letter to supporters, Whitehead — now prisoner number VM7684 of Ashford Prison — writes: ‘Prison life very easy. We get vegan toiletries and treats on the canteen, making life very good. ‘But I hate every second that is wasted in here when I could be out fighting for the animals, but every day is a step nearer to joining you all.’

As for Andy Robins, the detective who finally nailed Whitehead and the other members of the gang, he refuses to get drawn into the ­politics of animal testing. ‘This is nothing to do with animal rights — this was a criminal ­conspiracy, involving blackmail and violence, designed to ­create a climate of fear among their victims.’

He added: ‘There’s no problem with peaceful protests, but we can’t tolerate people who use crime to force their targets into submission. That just cannot be right, and I’m pleased to see Whitehead and the others behind bars.’

SOURCE






An indictment of the anti-war movement

Demands for the prosecution of Tony Blair only legitimise the use of international courts against weak states

When he was the UK foreign secretary, the late Robin Cook famously said of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that it was ‘not a court set up to bring to book prime ministers of the United Kingdom or presidents of the United States’. Yet, as former British prime minister Tony Blair finds whenever he makes a public appearance these days, it is now quite the fashion to call for Western leaders to be indicted for war crimes by the ICC.

Denouncing Western leaders as war criminals certainly sounds radical, but an accusation of criminality is a poor substitute for political argument. Worse, it obscures the negative role played by international war crimes trials, and even lends legitimacy to the thoroughly undemocratic idea that heads of state should be subject to some ‘higher’ judicial power.
Indict Blair?

War is now routinely treated as primarily a legal, rather than political, issue by both sides of the debate. Western politicians make the argument for war on legal grounds, claiming that intervention is necessary to halt crimes against humanity or to enforce compliance with UN resolutions. Anti-war campaigners, on the other hand, call for those same politicians to be indicted for war crimes.

Blair, of course, is the paradigm case. His government championed the 1998 Rome Statue, the treaty inaugurating the ICC, and within two years the UK had launched military operations – in Kosovo and Sierra Leone – that ended with leaders from those states standing trial in international courts. Now Blair has to cancel public appearances, as happened in London last month, because of protests by anti-war activists who say that he is ‘the real criminal who should be jailed’.

One such activist tried to perform a ‘citizen’s arrest’ on Blair during a recent visit to Dublin, and thereby became eligible for a prize – offered by Guardian columnist George Monbiot – for anyone attempting this sort of stunt and gaining media coverage. Other, similar campaigns appear to be pressing charges in earnest: the Blair War Crimes Foundation, for example, petitions both the United Nations and the ICC for Blair to be indicted. Over the summer, it even appeared for one, mad moment that this position might have accidentally become government policy, after deputy prime minister Nick Clegg - standing in for David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions - described the Iraq war as ‘illegal’. Commentators and lawyers rushed to offer their opinions on whether ‘Clegg’s gaffe…could strengthen [the] case for involvement of the international court’.

Are they serious? In 2007 the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, reportedly claimed that he could envisage a scenario in which Blair and former US president George W. Bush could one day face charges at The Hague. It is difficult, however, to match Ocampo’s powers of imagination: the court’s rules make such a prosecution virtually unthinkable.

There are three sets of circumstances under which the ICC can launch a prosecution: it can be invited in by a government which has ratified the treaty setting up the court (as in the ICC’s current prosecutions in Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic); it can have a case referred to it by the UN Security Council (as with its prosecution of Sudanese president Omar al Bashir); and it can launch an investigation on its own initiative (as it has done in Kenya), but only in relation to states which recognise its jurisdiction and only where national courts are unable or unwilling to prosecute.

There is also a further catch: the UN Security Council can halt any investigation it does not wish to see proceed (initially for a year, but renewable indefinitely). Permanent members of the UN Security Council – such as the United States or Britain – are never likely to face prosecution, and could stop any investigation dead in its tracks.

No doubt many of those calling for the indictment of Western leaders are fully aware that this is never going to happen; they seek only to make a point about the double standards of Western governments. Given that the foreign-policy rhetoric of Western politicians has been laden, in recent years, with grandiose claims about rights, justice and a ‘rules-based system’ of international relations, it is important to point out that these politicians blithely flout international law when it suits them.

Unfortunately, however, endorsing the idea that political leaders should be held to account by the ICC actually strengthens contemporary justifications for military intervention.

A legal licence to intervene

Perhaps surprisingly, advocates of the ICC are themselves quick to denounce the double standards it embodies. The prominent human-rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC, for instance, describes it, in his book Crimes Against Humanity, as ‘a court of a curious sort, where superpowers pull the strings (through the Security Council) yet at the same time…refuse to support it’. What needles the court’s supporters is that the US has so far refused to ratify the Rome Statute, on the grounds that it recognises no higher authority than its own national sovereignty. The US ‘refuses to be bound by international human rights law’, complains Robertson, but it ‘demands the prosecution of foreigners who violate it’.

Protestors who call for the indictment of US or British leaders echo this complaint, yet the problem is not that powerful states overvalue their national sovereignty, but rather that they devalue the sovereignty of weak states. Instead of calling, entirely unrealistically, for the ICC to prosecute Western leaders, anti-war critics would do better to challenge the idea that the court should be able to override any state’s national sovereignty.

One of the great myths about the ICC is that it represents a step toward a more peaceful and orderly world. What it actually represents is the overthrow of the principles that underpinned the post-1945 UN system: sovereign equality and non-interference in a state’s internal affairs. These principles did not, of course, eliminate conflict or remove real inequalities of power, but they did mean that external intervention was widely understood as illegitimate. Despite limitations, the recognition of formal equality was a tremendous advance for countries that had previously been mere colonial possessions of the Great Powers. This historic achievement is now dismissed by the likes of Robertson as ‘the petty notion of sovereignty’.

Since the early 1990s, the presumption has instead been of sovereign inequality, whether justified in terms of a ‘right to intervene’ or a ‘responsibility to protect’ – rights and responsibilities that in practice belong exclusively to those powerful states able to exercise them. The legalistic tenor of the discussion masks what is really at stake: it is notable that many of those who became sticklers for the law in 2003 (including some of those now calling for Blair’s indictment over Iraq), were eager to support the equally illegal Kosovo war in 1999. Blair’s government is long gone, but its talk of human-rights enforcement and an ‘end to impunity’ is unfortunately still with us.

War-crimes courts effectively provide a legal licence for intervention: during the Kosovo conflict it was the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia that gave NATO a judicial seal of approval, by indicting the Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, at the height of the bombing campaign. Now, the ICC’s supporters see the potential for this sort of thing to go much further. Robertson has argued, for example, that instead of justifying the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan in terms of national self-defence, the US should have invoked the ‘more permissive legal justification’ of ‘action to prevent and to punish “crimes against humanity”’. Similarly, he advised that, instead of all the flannel about weapons of mass destruction, the coalition’s cause in Iraq ought to have been Saddam’s crimes against humanity. It is not clear how either war would have been any better if carried out within this ‘permissive’ framework of human-rights enforcement.

Equally, it is not clear how imposed ‘regime change’ would somehow be acceptable if carried out in line with an ICC prosecution – yet that is what enforcement of the court’s arrest warrant against Sudan’s head of state would amount to. Indulging in fantasies about the indictment of Blair and Bush concedes the idea that international courts should rule on the legitimacy of national leaders. While that is a remote prospect for Western countries, it is a very real proposition for states on the receiving end of ‘international justice’.

Rather than hiding behind the law, we need to develop political arguments against war and intervention. A good place to start would be to oppose the ICC and other international war crimes tribunals in facilitating interference in sovereign states.

SOURCE





The mythical requirement to separate church and State

Thomas Sowell

Politics is not the only place where some pretty brassy statements have been made and repeated so often that some people have accepted these brassy statements as being as good as gold.

One of the brassiest of the brass oldies in the law is the notion that the Constitution creates a "wall of separation" between church and state. This false notion has been so widely accepted that people who tell the truth get laughed at and mocked.

A recent New York Times piece said that it was "a flub of the first order" when Christine O'Donnell, Republican candidate for senator in Delaware, asked a law school audience "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" According to the New York Times, ?The question draw gasps and laughter" from this audience of professors and law students who are elites-in-waiting.

The New York Times writer joined in the mocking response to Ms. O'Donnell's question, though admitting in passing that "in the strictest sense" the "actual words 'separation of church and state' do not appear in the text of the Constitution." Either the separation of church and state is there or it is not there. It is not a question of some "strictest" technicality.

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution about a "wall of separation" between church and state, either directly or indirectly.

That phrase was used by Thomas Jefferson, who was not even in the country when the Constitution was written. It was a phrase seized upon many years later, by people who wanted to restrict religious symbols and has been cited by judges who share that wish.

There was no mystery about what "an establishment of religion" meant when that phrase was put into the Constitution. It was not an open ended invitation to judges to decide what role religion should play in American society or in American government.

The Church of England was an "established church." That is, it was not only financed by the government, its members had privileges denied to members of other religions.

The people who wrote the Constitution of the United States had been British subjects most of their lives, and knew exactly what an "established church." meant. They wanted no such thing in the United States of America. End of story-- or so it should have been.

For more than a century, no one thought that the First Amendment meant that religious symbols were forbidden on government property. Prayers were offered in Congress and in the Supreme Court. Chaplains served in the military and presidents took their oath of office on the Bible.

But, in our own times, judges have latched onto Jefferson's phrase and run with it. It has been repeated so often in their decisions that it has become one of the brassiest of the brass oldies that get confused with golden oldies.

As fundamentally important as the First Amendment is, what is even more important is the question whether judges are to take it upon themselves to "interpret" the law to mean whatever they want it to mean, rather than what it plainly says.

This is part of a larger question, as to whether this country is to be a self-governing nation, controlled by "we the people," as the Constitution put it, or whether arrogant elites shall take it upon themselves to find ways to impose what they want on the rest of us, by circumventing the Constitution.

Congress is already doing that by passing laws before anyone has time to read them and the White House is likewise circumventing the Constitution by appointing "czars" who have as much power as Cabinet members, without having to go through the confirmation process prescribed for Cabinet members by the Constitution.

Judges circumvent the Constitution by reading their own meaning into its words, regardless of how plain and unequivocal the words there are.

The Constitution cannot protect us and our freedoms as a self-governing people unless we protect the Constitution. That means zero tolerance at election time for people who circumvent the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. Freedom is too precious to give it up in exchange for brassy words from arrogant elites.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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29 October, 2010

Diversity is Not a Military Necessity

Diversity as defined and used by the professional left is complete unmitigated horse crap. It is s cudgel they use to bash the racist, sexist neanderthals who stand in the way of their crusade. You see until every group of people in every possible human condition is equally represented by every available color or chromosome combination, we have failed.

This is an idiotic idea that is the last resort of the professional victimologists who arose from the civil rights movement. The idea that diversity is an unalloyed good has become far too accepted for a concept with absolutely no factual basis. If you are a fuzzy-headed lefty then it is self-evident that unless we have all the colors we don’t have a rainbow. The rest of us nurture this quaint notion that since associations are voluntary and organizations have an innate need to promote the best they can, that merit ought to be the basis for upward mobility.

Sadly, No. And so we have situations like this where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs makes this promise to decrease the readiness of our military and sacrifice lives on the altar of political correctness.

When he became chief of Naval Operations in 2005, Mullen said, he made diversity a priority. “When you’re taking on a very, very difficult challenge like this and trying to change your institution, you can’t go fast enough,” he said. Mullen said he focused his diversity goals for the Navy on two areas: minorities and women.

You can’t go fast enough? You are undertaking a basic change to what is valued in the military. Currently it is competence and experience, under the Mullen PC Protocols it will be melanin and genitalia. This is hardly good for readiness or morale or esprit de corps and it will guarantee that lesser-qualified officers will rise in the ranks based more on characteristics that have nothing to do with skill and leadership. The reason that there are not more minorities and women in senior positions has little to do with institutional white racism and a lot to do with who in our country decides to devote their life to military service.

“We know how to make [general officers],” he said. “We’ve been doing it a long time, and it’s actually pretty simple. You put them in the right jobs, and if they do well, they get promoted.

Now most people would have no trouble with that simple concept- do well, get promoted. But you see that wasn’t churning out the correct number of non-white and baby-capable officers so it must be the system that is broken. Mullen blamed the fact that the officers making career placements weer too white. So he injects purposeful racism into a system that before had this archaic notion that you put the best people in the best jobs to get the best result. He attempts to cover himself by saying all of a suddent after they put minorities who were told to promote minorities in these positions that tons of qualified recods started showing up. Yeah right. Or maybe if you decide to change the standards then you can pick and choose who you want to match your quotas.

I did a lot of executive search and one of the most disgusting, yet lucrative, things we did was diversity search. My client was a top three defense contractor and they always need more minorities. They basically had a standing order for any “diverse” talent, period. So we would scour the ranks of their competitors and would take any minorities we found and offer them a step or two up the ladder, regardless if they were actually qualified. If we had a specific position that had been designated to be filled by a minority then we would actively screen highly-qualified candicates out simply for being white. In the course of a normal search that would mean discarding and discriminating against 95%+ of the best people available in order to promote someone from an accepted victim class.

If the problem was actually that talented minority candidates were being ignored by the military or industry then perhaps this fixation on diversity would make sense. But they are not and they have not been for almost my entire adult life. In fact the military and related defense contractors have been under the gun to push affirmative action for decades now.

The problem is that equality of opportunity doesn’t lead to equality of outcome and that is what burns the victimologists. So they will tweak the system to discriminate in a way that gives them the diversity they want. In the college admissions system there is such an insane fight for non-whites that the sons and daughters of African plutocrats and elites push American blacks and whites out of the way since they have good grades and check the African- American block. And let’s not even begin to talk about the blatant and wholesale discrimination against Asians in this racial re-distribution game.

Racial discrimination is evil and that is true no matter who does it and for what reason. If you want more black kids to get college degrees, then you need to get more of them to stay in school. You can’t just magic the process and print them pieces of paper you have now devalued. The same applies to the military and it has that added focus factor that lives will ride on the process. If we decide that having the a beautiful rainbow for an officer corps is the right answer, then we will see more of the one color they all share in common- The blood of our troops shed on the battlefield.

SOURCE





Are you a sexual terrorist? New York worries about “street harassment.”

Crime, taxes, sanitation, schools, parks…. these are the issues the residents of most cities worry about. But New York is too cool for that, according to gawker: “A substantial crowd comprised of all genders, ethnicities, races, sexual orientations, and ages gathered today at the first City Council hearing on street harassment. Armed with suggestions on how the city can combat the problem, one expert said, “Street harassment is a form of sexual terrorism” and an activist called it a “gateway crime, creating a culture in our city that makes other forms of violence against women okay.”

Forget rape, forget assault, forget your boss touching your ass. If you engage in “Cat-calling,” “hollerin’ at a girl,” and “being a huge douchebag” you might be a sexual terrorist.

“One street harassment expert says 90% of women have experienced some sort of harassment on the street, and by 19 3/4 have been followed by creepy guys, according to Gothamist. Panelists speaking to City Council today recommended establishing “harassment free” zones around schools. While it’s a nice idea, it’s hard to see exactly how you could enforce this without seriously infringing on Americans’ hard-won right to be absolute shitbags in public. Maybe we can start with Joe Francis-free zones and go from there?” See here

Yes, the purveyor of Girls Gone Wild is the next Osama Bin Ladden. Seriously, do these people understand the First Amendment? Whistling at a person you find attractive is not sexual terrorism, it’s a compliment! Seriously ladies, if you’re looking for chivalry New York is not the place for that. The rotten apple is famous for being rude, someone insults you and you insult them back. That’s not sexual terrorism, that’s reality.

What’s next? Visual terrorism? Tattoos & Piercings Free Zones to avoid offending squares? How ‘bout Meat Free Zones to avoid offending vegans? Listen New York, if you want to worry about something, worry about bedbugs. They may not be “sexual terrorists” but they are destroying your $30 billion dollar industry.

SOURCE




Now the British government is trying to get its hands on the internet

With the best of motives of course

Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP, will today call for an investigation into the collection of personal data by Google during its Street View mapping service. The MP will also call for an internet bill of rights to protect the privacy of web users.

He will tell the House of Commons that a legal framework is necessary to "protect ordinary people" from having private information collected by commercial companies.

Mr Halfon requested the parliamentary debate following Google's confession in May this year that it had collected "fragmentary" data belonging to UK citizens while compiling information to use on its Street View application. This data included passwords, email addresses and Wi-Fi addresses.

Google has since apologised for collecting the data, claiming it did so unintentionally.

But Mr Halfon will say: "Google's invasion of privacy is not a few isolated mistakes. It is starting to look like a pattern." The MP is expected to criticise the internet search engine for impinging on people's civil liberties saying: "Either our home is our castle, or it is not."

He will warn against the use of private information "on an industrial scale for commercial purposes" and MPs will be told: "There is a real risk that we are sleepwalking into a privatised surveillance society."

Mr Halfon will claim that the UK's response to the infringement of the general public's privacy has been inadequate when compared with other countries.

In Greece and the Czech Republic Google Street View has been banned while the Candian privacy commissioner gave the company an official reprimand.

He will conclude: "When it comes to internet companies, the question of civil liberties is much murkier and less defined. That is why we need a robust commission of inquiry - with teeth - into the role of the internet and its relationship to individual liberty."

Google has insisted that the collection of the data was an accident caused when code left in a production system kept the content being broadcast over the Wi-Fi networks as the Google Street View car drove past.

A spokesman said: "'As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted networks. As soon as we realised what had happened, we stopped collecting all WiFi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the UK authorities. We want to delete the data as soon as possible and will continue to work with the authorities to determine the best way forward, as well as to answer their further questions and concerns.

"Over the past several months we have been working to strengthen our internal privacy and security practices, as well as talking to external regulators globally about possible improvements to our policies. We are making three types of changes: more people, including a new post of Director of Privacy, more training, and better procedures and compliance. For example, in terms of compliance every engineering project leader will be required to maintain a privacy design document for each initiative they are working on. This document will record how user data is handled and will be reviewed regularly by managers, as well as by an independent internal audit team."

Google has admitted to accidentally intercepting data in 30 different countries and deleted information collected in Austria, Denmark and Ireland in June. In July the UK Information Commissioner concluded there is no evidence of any "individual detriment".

In August this year police raided Google's South Korea headquarters, seizing computers and questioning company officials, following concern over alleged privacy violations.

SOURCE





France: A “revolution” to preserve the status quo

In the past, youthful rebels were heroically indifferent to their long-term security. The French protesters are obsessed with theirs

Throughout history, young people have been in the forefront of protest. Revolutions have relied on the idealism and the energy of the young. Even during periods of stability and social peace, the adult world expects youth to kick back against conventions and rebel. Indeed, acts of defiance and rebellion are an integral part of young people’s development, of their transformation into mature adults. So, do the children currently protesting on the streets of France represent yet another example of generational defiance and rebellion? Yes and no.

In one sense, there is nothing peculiar about young people marching on the streets and chanting radical slogans. However, in one fundamental respect the French protesters’ movement is very different to conventional forms of youthful rebellion. For a start, this isn’t really much of a rebellion. Historically, the youth are animated by an aspiration to change the world, so that the future will look very different to the present. By contrast, the French schoolchildren and students are protesting to preserve the status quo; in fighting to retain the current age of retirement and the pensions system, their concern is to make sure that the present state of affairs continues indefinitely into the future.

Of course, there have been numerous examples of defensive protesting that is aimed at preserving the existing state of affairs. However, the young protesters in France express a caricature of that kind of defensive protesting. There is something very strange about young people becoming preoccupied with the age of retirement and old-age pensions. Listening to the statements made by the protesting youth, one gets the impression that they are all speaking from the same tired script written by an exhausted old-age pensioner.

Perhaps they cultivated this very sensible, defensive demeanour in order to reassure the public, through the media, that their protests are not a threat. However, when one Parisian high-school student expressed her fears that if people had to work for an extra two years then there would be a million fewer jobs for the young, it was clear that this very young person was giving voice to the preoccupations of her grandparents. Numerous other young protesters expressed concern about ‘l’insecurite’. Historically, the young rebel partly because they are heroically indifferent to their long-term security; in contrast, today’s French rebels show that adopting a very old mindset can come at a surprisingly early age.

From the outset, these modern-day ‘children of the revolution’ were thoroughly infantilised by their elders. Time and again, the French cultural elites and media assured the youngsters that their protest resembled the student rebellions of the 1960s. Courtesy of a severe historical amnesia about what really occurred in the 1960s, an imaginary revolution has been constructed. With a wink and a nod, French adult society has communicated its approval of the youth’s pension protests.

In reality, there is a fundamental difference between the real thing, those protests of the Sixties, and its impoverished imitation today. One sought to change the world; the other wants to preserve it. The youth of the Sixties challenged the old France, whereas today’s youth have been self-consciously sanctioned by the old to hit the streets and stir up a storm.

Bereft of a political project or any vision for the future, French grown-ups have resorted to inciting the young to give President Nicolas Sarkozy – or ‘Sarko’ – a hard time. The French are not alone in this. Only a few years ago, schoolkids in England were celebrated by crusty grown-ups for going on strike and protesting against the war in Iraq. Hiding behind children has become a widely practised activity amongst twenty-first century adults, who parasitically feed on the energy of the youth.

Back in 2003, Britain’s Stop the War coalition could rely on groups of schoolteachers and university lecturers to instruct their students to protest against the Iraq War. In such circumstances, taking time off from school was not so much an act of defiance as a demonstration of responsible behaviour, which was likely to gain the approval of the citizenship studies teacher. These are modern-day versions of a medieval children’s crusade. The concerns and actions of these young protesters are not really the outcome of a generationally inspired radicalism. Rather, the youth is behaving in a way that is expected of them by their society. And indirectly, what this radicalism really expresses is the emptying out of adult identity.
Adult fantasies about youth

Society’s interest in and representation of youth are invariably driven by an adult agenda. So, what is truly interesting about many protests today is not so much the activities of the protesters themselves, but the way in which youth are perceived and represented. For a long time now, Western culture has tried to make sense of its hopes and fears through its interpretation of youthful behaviour. Often, youth are presented as having qualities that elude the old. Young people are endowed with characteristics like innocence, idealism, altruism and bravery. On a bad day, however, adult fantasies about young people focus on their depravity; youth are cast in the role of undisciplined, decadent and easily corrupted delinquents.

When adults are confident of their status and their authority, they can live with and reconcile their often conflicting fantasies about the young. For example, in classical antiquity the elders had no problem living with the cult of youthfulness. ‘Youth meant a healthy physique, beauty, and sexual attraction’, notes one fascinating study of the subject, before adding that, unlike today, the old in ancient times were ‘not goaded’ into being young (1). The line separating the generations was underwritten by a belief that only the old had the moral authority to run society. Indeed, in Ancient Greece and Rome, it was widely believed that ‘the young were not to be trusted with public affairs, that they were easily “corrupted” intellectually and morally and therefore a threat not only to themselves but to society at large’ (2).

For a variety of reasons, since modern times adult perceptions of the young have changed in Western society. Although the metaphor of youthful depravity still persists, the idealisation of youth has steadily gained momentum over the past three centuries. In the nineteenth century, radical and nationalist movements self-consciously adopted the word ‘Young’ to describe their parties. From the Young Italy movement to the Young Turks, a self-conscious emphasis on age conveyed an aspiration for change. Nineteenth-century Italian nationalist leaders demanded that the movement put youth at the head of its rebellion. This fantasy was carried on by Mussolini, who projected Youth as the ‘man of the future’ or, as he put it, a ‘young man not corrupted by the bourgeois and liberal past’.

In the interwar period, adult fantasies about a youthful vanguard became more powerful still. This was an era in which there was an intense concern about cultural decadence and decline. Cultural pessimism, it seems, is one of the driving forces behind the modern apotheosis of the young. In the interwar period, youth were cast in the role of a generation that would put right the mess created by their elders. It was in this era that the platitude about the young fixing adult problems gained influence in popular culture. Numerous publications predicted that the ‘revolt of the young against the old’ would help to save civilisation from the terrible damage inflicted on it by a generation steeped in the ways of the old.

The emptying out of adult identity

In recent decades, grown-up fantasies about the young have acquired an unusually desperate and confused character. So, what has changed? The main thing is that the identity of being an adult has lost much of its cultural weight and validation. Consequently, adult society often attempts to resolve the emptying out of its identity and authority by living through its young people.

Adults have become confused about how to conduct their relations with children. And this confusion is compounded by cultural trends that dispute and challenge the idea of adult authority (3). Since the 1960s glorification of youth culture, many parents have felt uncomfortable with their role as responsible adults. For some time now, parents, teachers and other adults involved with children have gone out of their way to cross the generational divide and become young people’s friends rather than mentors. Uncertainties about adulthood are invariably linked to changing ideas about childhood. In a world where maturity is disparaged as being ‘past it’, and the older generation is seen as having no special claim to wisdom, parents feel increasingly awkward about exercising authority.

Contemporary culture continually presents parents in a bad light. Popular culture portrays them as out-of-touch deadbeats who are insensitive to the needs of young people. In contrast, children are represented as essentially smart, streetwise and resourceful. This depreciation of adulthood, alongside the elevation of the child, is strikingly conveyed through TV shows and popular films. Children are regularly depicted as being morally superior to grown-ups, while their parents and other adults are depicted as craven fools. The depreciation of adulthood coincides with the idealisation of childhood and of young people.

Until the twentieth century, calling into question the power of elders focused on the manner in which authority was exercised. Youthful critics pointed to the failures, betrayals and cowardice of their elders – but they did not question the right of elders to possess authority. By contrast, over the past century the criticism of adult authority has acquired a more ideological and cultural dimension, leading to what has been described as the ‘de-authorisation of elders’. The elders no longer possess moral or cultural authority. Indeed, in recent times it is not only the authority of the old that has been called into question, but the authority of all adults.

It is this de-authorisation of adulthood that has encouraged the current tendency to defer to the youth. Time and again politicians lecture the public to ‘listen to the youth’; parenting experts have deified the ‘children’s voice’; and of course we are told that ‘children never lie’. In such circumstances, the claim that you are speaking on behalf of children or expressing the interests of the youth – or better still, getting a group of kids in front of the camera to mouth your message – is a way of legitimising your particular outlook. Speaking through the mouths of babes is now a popular pursuit amongst the European cultural elite. In France they have done it big time, with the old sanctioning the young to go out and pursue a ‘revolution’ dedicated to preserving the status quo.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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28 October, 2010

The Odyssey of Islamism in America

By Amil Imani

Islamism is a mutation of Islam and is rapidly advancing on two fronts. In every Islamic country, it is cowing the non-radicals while recruiting more and more radicals into its own ranks. In non-Muslim lands, flush with Petrodollars, Islamism is establishing itself as a formidable force by enlisting the disaffected and attracting the delusional liberals with its promises. For the faithful, there is the added incentive of Allah’s heaven and its irresistible attractions.

Wherever Islam goes, so goes its ethos. Throwing acid in the face of women who fail to don the hijab or just by going to school, flogging people for sporting non-Islamic haircuts, and stoning to death violators of sexual norms are only a few examples of a raft of daily barbaric acts of Islamists in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and many Islamic lands. Other forms of Islamic brutalities such as Honor Killing have already found their way to America, Germany and other European countries with the ever-burgeoning Muslim populations

Reading about these religiously mandated horrific acts and even seeing them on television or the Internet may momentarily repulse, but does not terribly concern many Americans. After all, those things are happening on the other side of the world, and those people deserve each other; we are safe in fortress America, so goes the thinking.

But “Fortress America” is a delusion that even the events of 9/11 seem to have failed to dispel. Many prefer to believe that the assault of 9/11 was an aberration, since nothing like it has happened again, and it is unlikely that anything of the sort will ever happen again, so goes the wishful thinking. The reality portrays a vastly different picture. America is far from a fortress given its vast wide-open borders. It is a nation of laws where all forms of freedom are enshrined in its constitution; it’s where Americans live by humane ethos diametrically different from those of Islamist savagery. Sadly, these differences confer great advantage to the Islamists and place America in imminent danger.

The breach of “Fortress America” from the air on 9/11 is only the first installment of many more forthcoming heinous assaults, unless we abandon our complacency, stop relying on the invincibility of the law-enforcement people and willingly make the sacrifices that would protect our way of life.

Knowing Islam intimately and having experienced its systemic savagery, has compelled me to warn repeatedly of the deadly imminent threat it poses to all non-Muslims (Why Confront Islamism) attempting to present a comprehensive treatment of the evil precepts and practices of Islamism. I am listing a few facts that should be enough to alarm anyone who cherishes liberty and freedom and awaken anyone who is comforted by the belief that all the Islamic mayhem is limited to an illiterate gang of primitive Middle Easterners and has no implications for America. Sorry, bad news is here already.

* Some 26 percent of American Muslims, ages18-29, support suicide bombings "in defense of Islam," according to findings of a recent Pew poll.

* According to Pew, there are 2.35 million Muslims in America, 30 percent of whom are in the 18-29 age range. Some claim that the number of Muslims is in fact much larger. Even using the conservative Pew numbers, over 180,000 Muslims in America are bomb-approving. This is an alarmingly large number, given that Muslims, as an article of faith, practice dissimulation in dealing with infidels and under-report their true intentions. How many human bombs and bomb-approving people does it take to wreak havoc on our country?

* The 180,000 Muslims living among us don’t define what “defense of Islam” is. It could be anything that they feel constitutes an attack on Islam and Islamic values, such as the reported flushing of the Quran down the toilet, the Danish Cartoons, Rushdie’s book, a newspaper article, an Internet posting, or even women not donning the hijab.

When religious fanatics unreservedly advocate wanton acts of mass murder, they are not likely to shy from coercion and intimidation measures to impose their will on the larger society. In tandem with the cold murder of Van Gough in Holland, for instance, Islamists had been striving to supplant civil laws with the Islamic Sharia in the country. In other lands such as France, England and Canada, Muslims have also been waging serious campaigns for adoption of the Sharia or some of its provisions, just for starters.

In 2001, ISNA published a brochure that is sent to public school teachers and administrators. "You’ve Got a Muslim Child in Your School" spells out some of the basics of Islam and specifies some of the restrictions. One section reads:

“On behalf of the Islamic Society of North America, the largest organization of Muslims in the United States and Canada, we would like to request that in view of the above teachings of Islam, Muslim students in your school system should not be required to:

1) Sit next to the opposite sex in the same classroom;

2) Participate in physical education, swimming or dancing classes. Alternative meaningful education activities should be arranged for them. We urge you to organize physical education and swimming classes separately for boys and girls in accordance with the following guidelines:

• Separate classes for boys and girls in a fully covered area
• Only male/female instructors for the respective group
• Special swimming suits that cover all the private parts of the body down to the knee
• Separate and covered shower facilities for each student

3) Participate in plays, proms, social parties, picnics, dating, etc. which require free mixing of the two sexes;

4) Participate in any event or activity related to Christmas, Easter, Halloween or Valentine’s Day. All such occasions have religious and social connotations contrary to Islamic faith and teachings. We also urge you to ensure that the following facilities are available to Muslim students in your school:

5) They are excused from their classes to attend off-campus special prayers on Fridays (approximately 1:00 to 2:00 P.M.).

6) They are excused for 15 minutes in the afternoon to offer a special prayer in a designated area on the campus. The prayer is mandatory for all Muslims and often cannot be offered after the school hours.

7) All food items containing meat of a pig in any form or shape, as well as alcohol, should be clearly labeled in the cafeteria.

8) At least one properly covered toilet should be available in each men’s and women’s room.

9) Muslim students are excused, without penalty of absence, for the two most important festivals of Islam: Eid Al-Fitr and Edi Al-Adha, in accordance with the lunar calendar.”

Ever since 9/11, and possibly before, America has been concerned about terrorists coming from Islamic lands. For this reason, some people advocated profiling as a safeguard against the 9/11 type mass murderers. But how do you profile hundreds of thousands of Muslim Americans who are already here and look and act like other Americans? How can an open free society such as ours safeguard the individual freedom we so greatly value and protect the safety of its citizens?

The immensely difficult task of safeguarding our freedom while ensuring our safety is seriously and repeatedly undermined by Islamist apologists, pontificating academes, vote-hungry politicians, and the mainstream media, each for their own reasons. Here are some of the comfort pills dispensed by the mainstream media’s polls: “Most Muslims seek to adopt American lifestyle" (U.S. Today); "Muslims assimilate better in U.S. than Europe, poll finds" (New York Times); Poll: “US Muslims Feel Post-9/11 Backlash Despite Moderate Outlook" (Voice of America).

It is said that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. The mainstream media’s manipulation of statistics goes beyond selective reporting and qualifies as outright disinformation. Is the U.S. Muslims’ outlook moderate? All U.S. Muslims? What about the self-reported outlook of hundreds of thousands who support mass murder in the “defense of Islam?”

More HERE




Israel: Oath's emphasis on a democratic nation state is soundly based

There is considerable misunderstanding about the proposal in Israel to change the oath for new citizens. This involves adding a few symbolic words referring to Israel's constitutional status as "a Jewish and democratic state" to an already mandatory oath for many new citizens.

That oath is not dissimilar to the pledge new Australian citizens recite and, following a sensible change to the original cabinet proposal, would be administered, if passed, in a non-discriminatory way to all newly naturalised citizens of Israel. Yet, the change may never occur - recent reports indicate it probably lacks the parliamentary majority it needs to become law.

Nonetheless, there are good reasons on balance to regard the citizenship oath proposal as counterproductive and unnecessary. The timing was clearly dictated by coalition politics, and the proposal does risk engendering undesirable feelings of discrimination and inferiority among Israel's Arab minority.
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However, the broader argument often heard that there is something inherently contradictory or racist with Israel defining itself as a Jewish and democratic state is evidence of ignorance, sloppy thinking or discriminatory malice.

Let's go back to basics. The UN's 1947 Partition Plan called explicitly for the creation of a "Jewish state", as well as an Arab state, more than 30 times, urging both to be democratic. Israel's 1948 Declaration of Independence described Israel as both Jewish and democratic while insisting all minorities have full and equal rights.

The whole point of Zionism was, and is, to create an internationally recognised democratic Jewish nation state, fulfilling the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in the Jewish homeland.

Such an identity is internationally unexceptional, with many democracies defining themselves based on their ethnic majority. These states express, utilise and preserve a particular people's history, language, culture, religion and group symbols, but without giving members of the majority superior rights.

Many democracies have ''established'' religions, including Britain, Greece, Ireland, Spain and Italy.

Every country in the Middle East identifies itself ethnically, religiously or both. The Palestinians give Islam, as well as Arab ethnicity, official status in their constitution.

Contrary to false claims that Israel is considering instituting some sort of overt legal discrimination against Arab Israelis, this would be absolutely forbidden by Israeli constitutional law (as embodied by Israel's Declaration of Independence, Basic Laws, and court precedents).

Israel does have some ongoing social equity problems affecting its Arab minority, not dissimilar to inequities confronting ethnic minorities in many democratic countries. However, despite undoubted room for improvement, Arabs in Israel have more rights than Arabs in any other Middle Eastern country. For example, in terms of the gaps between the minority and the majority in health, education and income, Arab Israelis are significantly better off than the children of Pakistani immigrants in Britain or indigenous Australians.

The guiding principle underlying the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for almost two decades has been to create two states for two peoples so both can achieve self-determination. Which ''two peoples'' do those who query a "Jewish state" think peace processors had in mind?

It seems indisputable that for a lasting peace based on this principle, both sides should recognise the right to self-determination of the other.

Yet Palestinians, including much of Israel's Arab minority, overwhelmingly reject this idea, even while insisting on their own right of self-determination. This rejection is explicitly tied to the demand for the Palestinian right of return - a demand that the descendants of Palestinians who fled or were pushed out of what became Israel in the 1948 war be allowed to immigrate to Israel, not the Palestinian state.

Implementation of this legally baseless demand would demographically destroy the Jewish state, as some of its advocates candidly acknowledge.

Thus, even if the oath proposal is ill-advised, the Israeli government's emphasis on seeking international and internal recognition of Israel's status as the democratic nation state of the Jewish people is soundly based.

The reality at the heart of the ongoing conflict is that until both Israel's enemies and peace partners accept a Jewish nation state, barriers to achieving true peace will remain.

SOURCE





Democrat propaganda incites hatred of Catholicism to attack Protestant minister!

They obviously just hate Christianity generally and too bad about who gets hurt

A political mailer sent by the Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party depicting the body of a priest wearing a button that says "Ignore the Poor" is an attempt to exploit anti-Catholic sentiment for political gain, the Catholic League said Wednesday.

The DFL insists the image is part of an effort to criticize a particular Republican candidate, not Catholics. A spokesman said the mailer is directed at Dan Hall, a Protestant minister and CEO of non-profit Midwest Chaplains, who is running for state Senate against DFL Sen. John Doll.

"Dan Hall is willing to enlist God and religion in his campaign when it helps him, but in fact, his views hurt the poorest and sickest among us, and this mailing holds him accountable for those views," DFL spokesman Donald McFarland told Fox News.

But Catholic League President Bill Donohue says the DFL would never have dismissed the criticism if it had used an image of an imam. "The DFL deliberately exploited Catholic imagery to make a political point," Donohue said. "If the DFL wants to paint Hall as anti-poor, then do it. But don't do it by hijacking Catholic imagery."

The mailer, which is one of two, went out under the DFL banner, and is an independent expenditure not endorsed by Doll. The second mailer has an image of an angel holding a scroll that says "Blessed are the Rich." The tagline reads: "Preacher Dan Hall: Pushing Politics from the Pulpit."

Doll issued a statement Wednesday saying his campaign had "nothing to do" with the mailing, calling the imagery "unfortunate."

"I have run a positive campaign based on my record of accomplishment for the district and have asked the DFL to refrain from sending any future mailings of this nature into my district. I call on all third parties engaged in negative campaigning, whether in my district or elsewhere, to cease these activities for the benefit of Minnesota voters," he said.

But McFarland said the two-piece mailer aims to highlight Hall's decision not to criticize Gov. Tim Pawlenty and state Republican lawmakers who cut funding to a state health care program in order to balance the budget.

The funding cut resulted in moving thousands of low-income recipients from one program to another that isn't on-budget, but critics say the alternative offers fewer services and costs medical providers more.

"Some Republican bloggers have taken one image from the first piece, and claimed that the mail is somehow anti-Catholic. But the text explicitly criticizes Preacher Hall for distancing himself from policy views that have been taken by the Catholic Archdiocese, by the Lutheran Synod and other leaders in Minnesota's faith community," McFarland said.

Hall, who called the mailer a slight against Catholicism, said he was surprised by the "extreme" imagery. He also questioned the point of using a priest in the depiction. "I've never worn a collar so that is way out of line," he said.

Hall added that he's spent 30 years ministering to the poor. "I think it's really terrible that we have all of this negative campaigning but this one is really below the belt. I think it affects a lot of people, churchgoing people," Hall said. "They just don't like that I've got a religious background."

SOURCE





Condescension and comeuppance

by Jeff Jacoby

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE with the sound of liberal Democratic contempt for the electorate. So are the valleys, the prairies, and the coasts. For months, voters have been signaling their discontent with the president, his party, and their priorities; in less than a week, they appear poised to deliver a stinging rebuke. Yet rather than address the voters' concerns with seriousness and respect, too many Democrats and their allies on the left have chosen instead to slur those voters as stupid, extremist, or too scared to think straight.

At a Democratic fundraiser in Newton this month, offering what he called "a little bit of perspective from the Oval Office," President Obama gave this diagnosis of the American political scene:

"Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country is scared."

The smug condescension in this -- We're losing because voters are panicky and confused -- is matched only by its apparent cluelessness. Does Obama really believe that demeaning ordinary Americans is the way to improve his party's fortunes? Or that his dwindling job approval is due to the public's weak grip on "facts and science" and not to, say, to his own divisive and doctrinaire performance as president?

Perhaps he does. Or perhaps he just says such things when speaking to liberal donors. It was at a San Francisco fundraiser in 2008 that Obama described hard-pressed citizens in the small towns of Pennsylvania as "bitter" people who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them . . . as a way to explain their frustrations."

Obama is far from alone in looking down his nose at the great unwashed. Last month, Senator John Kerry explained that Democrats are facing such headwinds these days because voters are easily swayed dolts: "We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on, so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth."

Meanwhile, the rise of the Tea Party movement, one of the most extraordinary waves of civic engagement in modern American politics and a major driver of the 2010 election season, has drawn no end of scorn from Democrats and their cheerleaders in the media.

In Massachusetts, state Senate President Therese Murray calls Tea Party members "nutcases," while ABC's Christiane Amanpour is aghast that the grassroots movement has "really gone to the extreme" and is "not conservatism as we knew it." Rob Reiner even smears the Tea Party as Nazi-esque: "My fear is that the Tea Party gets a charismatic leader," the Hollywood director said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" last week. "All they're selling is fear and anger and that's all Hitler sold." And the crop of citizen-candidates running for Congress this year, many of them with Tea Party backing? A "myriad of wackos," sneers the influential liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas.

Trashing conservatives as "nutcases" and "wackos" -- or worse -- is par for the course among left-wing pundits and politicos. But the electorate isn't buying it. "Likely voters in battleground districts," reports The Hill in a recent story on a poll of 10 toss-up congressional districts across the country, "see extremists as having a more dominant influence over the Democratic Party than they do over the GOP." Among likely voters, 44 percent think the Democratic Party is overpowered by its extremes (37 percent say that about the Republicans). Even among registered Democrats, 22% think their party is too beholden to its extremists.

Heading into next week's elections, Americans remain a center-right nation, with solid majorities believing that the federal government is too intrusive and powerful, that it does not spend taxpayer's money wisely or fairly, and that Americans would be better off having a smaller government with fewer services. Nearly halfway through the most left-wing, high-spending, grow-the-government presidential term most voters can remember, it shouldn't come as a surprise that so many of them are rebelling. The coming Republican wave is an entirely rational response to two years of Democratic arrogance and overreach. As the president and his party are about to learn, treating voters as stupid and confused is not a strategy for victory.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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27 October, 2010

Send all violent criminals to court: Top British judge warns far too many are being given just a caution

England's most senior judge has demanded an end to a criminal justice scandal which sees thousands of violent and persistent offenders getting off with cautions. Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, said that thugs who injure others should always be taken before the courts rather than being given a slap on the wrist – so they have to answer to magistrates for their crimes.

He told MPs that it was ‘demeaning’ to the victims of violent crimes if prosecutors do not bother taking offenders to court, which could see them being sent to jail. The intervention is a direct attack on the Crown Prosecution Service and on Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, who wants to see fewer offenders go to jail and fewer courts to try them in.

Last year 27,305 people guilty of violence against the person were let off with a caution after pleading guilty – 39 per cent of the total number of violent offenders. It is believed they include people guilty of conspiracy to murder, kidnapping, child neglect and inflicting life-threatening wounds. Joyriders who kill people have even got off in the past.

Critics say the cautions do nothing to instill confidence in the public that justice is being done.

Lord Judge said he also wanted to see all persistent offenders being forced to go to court. Between 2000 and 2008, half a million are let off with cautions after four or more offences.

There are fears the situation will get worse as a result of Mr Clarke’s plans to cut the number of people being sent to jail by scrapping sentences of six months or less.

Lord Judge made his comments days after clashing with the Justice Secretary over his plans to close dozens of courts, which has also led to fears that fewer criminals will face magistrates. Appearing before the Commons justice select committee yesterday, Lord Judge said he accepted that in some cases, a person of good character ‘does something silly’ in what is clearly a one-off incident – meaning they could be safely given a caution.

But he added: ‘I do actually feel that in relation to persistent offenders; if they offend, they should be brought to court. The judgment should be made by the court. ‘And I believe that somebody who commits an offence of violence which causes injury should be brought to court. It’s a matter of public record then. ‘And there’s the issue of how victims feel about a non-appearance in court. It’s demeaning of a victim of a violent crime to be told, “We are not going to take this individual to court”.’

He said it was right and proper for the CPS to decide not to take a case forward if there is not enough evidence. But he added: ‘You can’t, in my view, not take a case which includes violence against a person to court simply because it’s not a good idea. If you’ve got the evidence, you should take them to court and let the magistrates decide.’

Criminologist David Green, director of the Civitas think tank, said: ‘Everyone in the criminal world regards a caution as essentially nothing, and they send the message to the victim that they are of little consequence.’ He added: ‘If Mr Clarke continues on the road he has set out on, it is hard to see any other consequence than the number of cautions for violent offences going up.’

Not sending someone to court is called an ‘out-of-court disposal’ and is given to those who admit they are guilty. But they are supposed to be handed out only for minor offences. However, as well as being given to those who have committed violence, they are being given to persistent offenders.

In 2007, the last year for which figures were published, 357 cautions were given to people guilty of threat of conspiracy to murder, 43 per cent of the total offenders. A total of 276 cautions were handed out to those guilty of wounding or other acts endangering life; 1,175 for cruelty or neglect of children; 30 for child abduction; three for abandoning a child under two years and two for procuring an illegal abortion. One person was even cautioned for causing death by aggravated vehicle taking.

Lord Judge, who has a long reputation of standing up for common-sense justice, wrote to Mr Clarke last week to demand a re-think of plans to close 157 magistrates and county courts in a bid to save £2billion.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: ‘We would normally expect those accused of committing violent offences to be brought to court. The more serious the offence the more important it is that the offender be prosecuted. ‘Operational decisions in individual cases are a matter for the police and CPS on the ground.’

SOURCE





British government to crack down on legal piranhas at last

No-win, no-fee deals are to be scrapped under a radical shake-up of the courts to stop ambulance-chasing lawyers from cashing in on frivolous cases. Justice Secretary Ken Clarke announced yesterday that he will scrap lucrative success fees which allow lawyers to double their bill at the expense of the person or organisation that loses the case.

NHS trusts have been driven to pay up before a case comes to court to avoid the peril of huge costs of going to trial.

The payouts have been blamed for having a ‘chilling’ effect on freedom of speech since they have driven scientists, writers and newspapers to settle even flimsy accusations of libel out of court rather than risk the huge costs of losing a case.

Britain will now move to a system in which lawyers take a share of the damages awarded to the winner – the same as the American system. Damages are likely to be increased by 10 per cent to ensure that those who win a case still receive the money they deserve.

Mr Clarke said he has accepted the findings of a review by Lord Justice Jackson, published earlier this year. He recommended an end to the top-up fees for lawyers, which make the loser pay a penalty of 100 per cent of the costs, and found that some made off with fees costing ten times the level of the damages awarded.

Labour had intended to slash ‘success fees’ to 10 per cent of costs. But the Justice Secretary has decided to scrap them altogether.

Mr Clarke told Radio 4’s Law in Action programme: ‘You should not have a situation where, regardless of however frivolous the claim is, the sensible thing for the defendant to do is to settle, get out, before the legal costs start running up.’

The Ministry of Justice is now working on plans for legislation to be introduced early next year.

In a second move, the Government plans to strengthen freedom of speech, by introducing protections that will stop libel laws being used to stifle free expression and censor books and newspapers. Mr Clarke plans to introduce an explicit defence of public interest to enshrine freedom of expression, as well as preserving the right of public figures to protect their reputation.

Legislation on that will be drawn up next year and could come into force in 2012.

Taken together, Ministry of Justice officials say the new guidelines will ensure that legitimate libel cases can go ahead but prevent big corporations from silencing academics and journalists who make fair criticism of their activities.

The issue was highlighted when science writer Simon Singh was sued by the British Chiropractic Association after he claimed there was little evidence chiropractic treatments helped children with asthma. The BCA eventually dropped the case but only after Mr Singh had lost two years earnings and run up £20,000 legal costs.

SOURCE





Hollywood mocks Christians

The plot of Easy A is centered on a rumour that teenager Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) is “easy” or promiscuous. Here’s the catch, she’s actually a virgin who pretends to be sexually involved with her male classmates to improve their social status.

Just as the parental review stated, the antagonists are self-righteous “Christians” at her school who condemn her sinful nature and label her the school outcast. Sound like the plot of a Hollywood teen Box Office hit?

You bet, and it seems that throwing in a dash of Christian ridicule doesn’t hurt either. Anti-Christian sentiments almost always got a laugh at the session I was at.

Easy A is not the only Hollywood production profiting from the inclusion of token annoying Christian characters. You may recall Springfield’s most devout Christians, the Flander’s family. They’re the “other” nuclear family.

Unlike the Simpsons they’re helpful, kind and conscientious. If they were new age hippies we’d probably love them but for some reason the ‘Jesus’ thing always throws us off.

Here’s one for the Gleeks, Jesus-fan Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) is head of the cheerleading squad and president of the Christian celibacy club. The popular blonde wears a crucifix around her neck and loses her virginity to her boyfriend’s best friend and tries to convince her boyfriend it’s his baby. Once again we are not let down by a paradoxical ‘Jesus’ loving character.

Next stop The Office. Set in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Enter Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey), head of accounting at Dunder Mifflin. The uptight, judgmental blonde is famous for being a conservative Christian who cheats on her fiancé. The character has stated that if she were stranded on a deserted island she would take three books the Bible, The Purpose Driven Life and The Da Vinci Code.

If you’re confused about the latter, it’s only so she could burn it. Funny, right? It’s okay to laugh, but are Christians unjustly stereotyped on screen?

Justine Toh, Senior Fellow with the Centre for Public Christianity, stated that “we’re seeing a lazy stereotype on screen which portrays Christians as judgmental, harsh, ignorant, ultra-conservative, uptight, and hypocritical: in other words, the ultimate killjoy.”

Toh said that she understands where the stereotypes stem from, “because some people’s experience of Christians and Christianity has been overwhelmingly negative.”

Many have commented on the nature of filmmaking. Even independent filmmakers have come forth about their social responsibility. Film producer/activist Trudie Styler told Inside Film Magazine said she would only create socially conscious films. “We must be extremely responsible and accountable as filmmakers,” said Styler.

Professor Haire sees things differently, “I do not think that filmmakers have any particular responsibility in this area. The market will decide on their value.”

Toh agrees, “If filmmakers want to make movies featuring conservative, uptight Christians, that’s fine. They exist. But I hope the cinema-going public isn’t satisfied with such overly simplistic portrayals.”

So, is there a decline in religious worship by younger generations and can it be linked to how religion is depicted on screen? “In Western societies there is a decline in religious devotion. However there is a growth in the religious devotion in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America… where perceptions in the media are quite different,” responds Professor Haire.

Now back to the dilemma of whether Easy A is an appropriate film to take my younger, more impressionable cousin to see. I decided to take the road not taken, I said ‘no’ and took her to Luna Park instead. One week later she told me she saw the film.

“What did you think about that Christian character? Does she make you not want to be a Christian?” I asked inquisitively. “She was funny, but I don’t take it that seriously,” my cousin replied. Her response was reassuring, I guess there’s still hope for the younger generation.

SOURCE





Toxic suspicion of men

Comment from Australia

When did we start to dislike men so much that we're happy for them not to be part of our children's lives? That's the question posed by the latest ridiculous assault on the integrity of all males. It comes in the form of a ban on schoolboys using a public pool change room after swimming lessons because men fear they will be falsely accused of pedophilia.

Of course, the fact that many men support that decision is understandable; any man now knows he is automatically viewed with suspicion. That's why our children might sneak through the entire education system now without a male teacher. It's why men stopped jogging along bike tracks, when the city was on the lookout for the bikeway rapist. It's why airline staff try not to seat adult males next to children. And it's why most fathers I know won't supervise their young daughters' play dates, unless there is a female adult present.

The distrust of males has been creeping up on us, fanned by the sick minds of a few who have stolen the innocence of children, and left heartache in their wake. But can you now be guilty simply by gender?

Alan from Brisbane has this story: he was at South Bank when he saw a small girl, about four years old, wandering along the river's edge and crying. He watched as more than 30 people walked by without helping. He stopped one of them, a woman, and asked her to help him help the child. "I told her why - I'd be accused of being a pedophile," he said. "If that little girl had fallen into the river and I dived in after her I'd be on the front page as a hero; but when she was only 30cm from falling in I'd be called a pedophile." How did we allow ourselves to get to the point, he wrote on a Daily Telegraph blog, where caring people are considered pedophiles?

Just stop reading this, and ask the man sitting nearest to you. His reaction would probably mirror Alan's - because society has made men feel that way. This is another Brisbane man on the same blog: "I know a teacher who was accused of rape by a schoolgirl because he refused her advances, and he lost his job, his wife, his kids and his life. Never mind that she admitted it and cleared him. This culture has to change, or this sort of rule will become more common."

It seems it already has. After revelations of the Sydney pool decision, several people joined the debate, saying it had become standard practice in Brisbane. Rory said it was happening at his children's school: "The poor little buggers were freezing coming home from the pool - about 10 minutes drive - and had to change into their dry clothes at school. "It's ridiculous! If society keeps running on fear, its going to become a pretty hollow environment to live in."

Ann of Brisbane: "Our school has been doing this for years. The kids wrap themselves in towels and sit on the bus for 20 minutes in wet togs." These are boys made to feel bad because of their gender.

Allan, from the Gold Coast, explains it this way: "Why would a male teacher want to put himself in that position? All it takes is for some smart-alec kid to joke about a male teacher perving on him and (his) professional life is over . . ."

Matt of Perth: "I like this rule. You're in more danger of being falsely accused than you are of actually being a victim."

Aaron: "The last thing you want to be doing is changing from your swimming gear to work clothes or vice versa and find out a couple days later you've been accused of exposing yourself or something of the kind."

The Doc of Sydney: "I cannot get out of the pool change room fast enough if children are there as I have no defence against a false allegation."

Clancy: "I would have thought banning parents from taking pictures of their children at the beach would have been enough to wake people up from this insane pedophile mania . . . but apparently not."

Someone else: "Why don't you just stop males from being teachers to protect the student, or just stop fathers from being parents to their sons, in case they get branded a pedophile."

John from Alice Springs calls it "pedophobia", but its consequences are bigger than that. We're creating a generation of young boys who don't have confidence in their own sexuality; sons who think their gender marks them as bad; and daughters who grow up with few, if any, male role models. And in that scenario, men and women lose out.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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26 October, 2010

Middle-Eastern bishops utter an anti-Israel cry

Note that the Vatican itself issued NO statement about Israel whatsoever. The statement was issued by a clutch of Middle-Eastern bishops with a vested interest in protecting their people from Muslim attacks. Being pro-Israel would be fatal to them. The only connection of their statement to the Vatican is that they held their conference there

Israel on Sunday slammed critical remarks made by Middle East Catholic bishops after a meeting chaired by Pope Benedict XVI as "political attacks" on the Jewish state.

"We express our disappointment that this important synod has become a forum for political attacks on Israel in the best history of Arab propaganda," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said in a statement. "The synod was hijacked by an anti-Israel majority," he added.

Bishops and patriarchs from across the Middle East on Saturday called on the international community to end the occupation of Arab lands in an official statement following a two-week synod held at the Vatican.

"Recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the Word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable," the synod said.

Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros, head of the commission which drew up the statement, went one step further, saying: "The theme of the Promised Land cannot be used as a basis to justify the return of the Jews to Israel and the expatriation of the Palestinians."

"For Christians, one can no longer talk of the land promised to the Jewish people," the Lebanese-born head of the Greek Melkite Church in the United States said, because the "promise" was "abolished by the presence of Christ."

Ayalon said he was "especially appalled" at those remarks. "We call on the Vatican to (distance) themselves from Archbishop Bustros's comments, which are a libel against the Jewish people and the state of Israel and should not be construed as the Vatican's official position."

Most religious Jews believe the land of Israel was given to them by God, and Jewish settlers often cite biblical justifications for holding onto the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories seized in the 1967 Six-Day War.

But foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said scripture had never been used by any Israeli government to justify the occupation or settlement of territory.

He also pointed out that Israel's Christian population had grown since the establishment of the Jewish state, while in much of the rest of the Middle East Christians have fled in large numbers because of war, instability and economic hardship.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, meanwhile, welcomed the synod's call for a two-state solution and blamed Israel for the emigration of Christians from the occupied territories. "The international community must uphold its moral and legal responsibility to put a speedy end to the illegal Israeli occupation," he said.

The United States convinced Israel and the Palestinians to renew direct peace negotiations in early September but the talks ground to a halt later that month when a 10-month partial Israeli moratorium on settlements expired.

SOURCE




Disappearing Middle Eastern Christians, Disappointing Bishops

David P. Goldman gives some background to the above news

“Catholic Church: Christ nullified God’s promises to the Jews,” reads the headline on the Israel Today website. That is not quite true: At the just-concluded Synod of Middle East Bishops, a cleric from the tiny group of Melkite Greeks, Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros, made such a statement on behalf of the Melkites, not the Catholic Church.

The head of the same church, the Syrian-based Patriarch Gregorios III Laham, also attacked priestly celibacy before the Synod. He wasn’t speaking for Rome, either. Clerical marriage hasn’t helped the Melkites; they claim just 1.3 million members worldwide, fewer than the Korean Methodist Church or the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea. Their actual numbers are much smaller.

The concerns of Greek Christians will fade before long, for in two or three generations there will be no Greek Christians in the Middle East, nor indeed Christians of any sort in the Middle East. Nor, for that matter, will there be many Greeks; with a fertility rate of only 1.37 children per female, one of the world’s lowest, Greece by mid-century will have a population two-thirds of which exceeds the age of sixty, and very little population at all by the end of the century. In a hundred years, modern Greek will be a dying language.

Israeli Jews, by contrast, have the highest fertility of any first-world population, and not only because of the fecund ultra-Orthodox; fertility among secular Israelis is far above replacement. By 2100, eighteen centuries after Constantine founded the Greek empire, more people will speak Hebrew than Greek.

Jews might well ignore the sepulchral voice of a dying ethnic church, except for one fact: the Melkite cleric in question, Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros, headed the commission that drafted the Synod’s final statement. Speaking personally and not for the Synod he said, “The theme of the promised land cannot be used as a basis to justify the return of the Jews to Israel and the expatriation of the Palestinians. . . . For Christians one can no longer talk of the land promised to the Jewish people,” because the “promise” was “abolished by the presence of Christ . . . there is no longer a favored people, a chosen people; all men and women of every country have become the chosen people.”

Middle Eastern Christians are hostage to a hostile Muslim majority, and to Iran in particular. Lebanese Maronites, the largest surviving community, were a majority by design when France established the present Lebanese state after World War I as a Catholic enclave. Infertility and immigration have reduced Maronite numbers to perhaps 30 percent, although political sensitivities have forbid census-taking for a generation. If Iran’s proxy army, the Hezbollah, wished to, it could slaughter the Christians on any given morning. That is why the most prominent Lebanese Christian leader, Michel Aoun, is allied to Hezbollah, against the Saudi- and American-backed Sunni opposition.

It is hardly news that Middle Eastern Christians (except for the growing community of Hebrew-speaking Christians) hate Israel. They blame the Israeli-Arab conflict for the deterioration of their position. Arab Christians, moreover, played a prominent role in Arab nationalist movements; they are Arabs first, that is, and Christians second....

The anguish of the Church, its unwillingness to let go a foothold in the Holy Land, and its pastoral concern for its beleaguered flock, all are understandable. Jews should temper their disappointment with understanding. But the facts on the ground are what they are. The Christians of the Middle East long since failed of their own infertility, and would decline even if they did not face persecution from Muslims. Giving a big voice to a little man like Archbishop Bustros will do nothing to help them. But silence in the face of evil increases the likelihood of war.

SOURCE






It’s not just Britain's Tories who want austerity

We can’t make a convincing case against austerity without challenging today’s cultural aversion to prosperity

Something remarkable happened in Britain yesterday, but it wasn’t the Comprehensive Spending Review introduced to parliament by George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer. Rather it was the absence of any coherent opposition to what will undoubtedly be a serious attack on popular living standards.

The mass of the population most likely felt a fatalistic resignation at the prospect of spending cuts, rising unemployment and falling living standards. No doubt they were unhappy about what was awaiting them, but they felt there was little they could do to resist austerity.

There were some demonstrations around the country, but they were small and tokenistic in character. Few believed there was much prospect of having a significant effect. The best that most might hope for is that the particular areas they work on or care about should suffer less than others. So they might prefer, for example, for cuts to be lighter in higher education than other areas, or they might be particularly concerned about pensions or welfare benefits.

For anyone with a sense of history, such a passive response must seem strange. There are plenty examples from the past where assaults on living standards have provoked a militant response.

There are several possible responses to this fatalism – but most of them have little credibility. Some conservatives have pointed out that public spending will still continue to rise in cash terms over the next few years. But such an argument is disingenuous, since in real terms, once inflation is taken into account, spending will fall. Once debt repayments are taken into account, along with the protection of spending in some ministries, much of the public sector is going to suffer a substantial fall in spending.

In any case, the official estimate that up to 500,000 public sector workers could lose their jobs by 2014-15 is a good indicator of how hard the cuts could hit. Not only are they likely to mean poorer services for many, but also job losses and greater workplace insecurity for others.

The claim that a dynamic private sector, freed from the shackles of the state, will quickly create new jobs for the legions of unemployed is hard to take seriously. If anything, private sector unemployment could well rise, too, as private businesses are deprived of state support.

Others might blame the pathetic response to the cuts on what is deemed the ‘official opposition’ to the austerity proposed by the Liberal-Conservative coalition. Labour’s reaction is essentially that cuts should be imposed a little later and perhaps a little less extensively than the government suggests. To be sure, the Trades Union Congress has called for a demonstration against cuts – for some time next year.

But only the deluded or those ignorant of Britain’s recent history would have any faith in the desire of such organisations to resist austerity. Apart from anything else, before the May election the Labour Party made it clear that, at least in principle, it saw substantial cuts as unavoidable.

The real reason for the lack of any significant opposition to austerity goes wider and deeper than any of the standard explanations suggest. It is to be found in a strong cultural aversion to prosperity that became mainstream in British society in the 1970s and has strengthened since then. In turn, it should be seen as a central component of a broader social pessimism and retreat from the idea of progress.

This aversion to prosperity is missed because critics of the government typically assume that the assault on living standards will come from born-again Thatcherites. They see themselves as fighting the last war, just as surely as France building the Maginot line, a giant First World War-style fortified trench, to defend itself against Nazi Germany in the 1930s. In the event, Germany easily overpowered the defences using modern armoured warfare in 1940.

The contemporary aversion to prosperity is both more subtle and more powerful than that suggested by the idea of a Thatcherite assault. It takes the form of what I have called growth scepticism: the pervasive notion that economic growth is constrained by limits that humanity attempts to overcome at its peril. Such constraints are not simply seen as challenges but as immutable barriers that cannot be transgressed without causing immense harm.

Growth scepticism points to many such boundaries. The most obvious, and the first to be popularised, is the notion of a natural limit. From this perspective, economic growth threatens to devastate the environment and perhaps destroy the planet itself.

Sustainability is best seen as a variant of the concept of a natural limit. The idea is that economic growth may not pose immediate problems in the present, but it threatens potentially fatal challenges in the future. Climate change is the most popular example of this line of argument.

Another set of limits are portrayed as social. One variant of this is the emphasis on happiness in contemporary society. Influential figures have argued that the overriding goal of society and individuals should be achieving happiness rather than becoming wealthier. Economic growth is therefore downplayed or even stigmatised as causing ‘affluenza’.

An alternative version of the social limits argument relates to inequality. From this perspective, not only is inequality a social problem – it is also an argument against growth. Rising prosperity is seen as inherently dangerous as it can lead to widening inequality. In this view a more equal but poor society is generally seen as preferable to a less equal rich one.

Finally, there is the notion of moral limits. From this perspective, economic growth risks morally corrupting us. By fostering ‘greed’, it is argued that growth brings out the worst in humanity.

None of this means that the drive to austerity cannot be challenged. But it does suggest that the old approaches will not work. Simply pointing to the evils of cuts will not be convincing when growth scepticism is so deeply embedded. Looking to the Labour Party or the remnants of the old trade unions is deeply naive. And scapegoating greedy bankers will only make matters worse by strengthening the demand for sacrifice.

Instead it is necessary to go back to first principles. To restate the case for economic growth as part of a broader humanist project of rehabilitating social progress and modernity. Such an approach will not be easy to pursue. Growth-sceptic ideas are deeply embedded in contemporary societies. But it is only through rehabilitating prosperity as a desirable goal that it is possible to make a convincing case for resisting austerity.

More here





Halloween busybodies

On one year out of seven, Halloween hops to a calendar spot that haunts the Livingston Parish Council. It’s a religious holiday, and the Livingston Parish Council has no right to tell people when they can celebrate it, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana says in a letter to the council.

The council moved the parish’s Halloween trick-or-treating hours from Sunday night, Oct. 31, to Monday night, Nov. 1, because Oct. 31 falls on a Sunday this year, and some religious groups feel ghosts and goblins shouldn’t prowl on that hallowed day.

That decision is unpopular with many parish residents, so people in some subdivisions plan to ignore it, said Parish President Mike Grimmer, who disagrees with the council’s ordinance. Grimmer said he would have liked to have seen the parish’s trick-or-treaters out in force the evening of Saturday, Oct. 30.

Violation of the parish ordinance can carry a fine of up to $500 and up to 30 days in jail, according to the ACLU.

“No one in Livingston Parish should fear jail time for honoring a religious holiday on its officially designated date,” the ACLU’s letter states.

“Halloween is a part of a long religious tradition, both Celtic and Christian,” the letter says. “Linked with the Nov. 1 commemoration of All Saints Day, it is a reflection of a religious respect for the dead. For many, the date of Halloween cannot be altered any more than can the date of Christmas, because it is a religious event.”

More here

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

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

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

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



25 October, 2010

New Hampshire newspaper refused to publish homosexual wedding announcements

A newspaper in New Hampshire has come under fire for refusing to print wedding announcements for homosexual couples, despite same-sex marriage being legal in the US state. The Union Leader, New Hampshire's largest newspaper, declined to publish a notice of the marriage of two men in Portsmouth on Saturday.

New Hampshire is one of five US states to have legalised homosexual marriage. It became legal on January 1, two years after civil partnerships were allowed.

Joseph McQuaid, the publisher of the Manchester-based newspaper, said that it was not "anti-gay", but its stance was that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. "While the law sanctions gay marriage, it neither demands that churches perform them or that our First Amendment right to choose what we print be suspended," Mr McQuaid said in a statement.

But Paul Hodes, a Democratic Senate candidate for the state, told Mr McQuaid that the newspaper should "respect the law of New Hampshire" and change its policy.

Greg Gould, one half of the homosexual couple involved, described the newspaper as "out of touch". "It's just news," said Mr Gould, a 42-year-old financier, of his announcement. "If they didn't want to report on all the things they didn't like, then they wouldn't report on murder, and war, and government.''

A spokesman for Mr Hodes's Republican opponent, Kelly Ayotte, said that government had no right to interfere with the freedom of the press.

SOURCE





Shock and Awful Art

Rocco Landesman is the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Boy, does he know how to spin the official line on offensive art. In a recent interview in Cincinnati, he was asked vaguely about controversy. "The best art taps into deep feelings, sometimes to comfort and sometimes to confront. Art can be very uncomfortable," Landesman said. "That can lead to strong reactions. For some of us, it draws us into the arts over our lifetimes and careers. For others, it creates strong negative feelings."

Landesman wasn't being asked specifically about negative feelings over the Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland, Colo., a taxpayer-funded art space that recently featured a controversial painting with Jesus Christ receiving oral sex from a man. He's certainly not used to critical questions about just how this blasphemy-by-numbers seems like a tiresome rerun -- Jesus in urine, Jesus in chocolate, Jesus in (homo)sexual ecstasy.

You know -- he wasn't asked, but you just know -- that he never would defend as "the best art" the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad or the Dalai Lama receiving oral sex. He'd be offended if it were a secular figure, such as, oh, President Barack Obama. But this is Christ, whom every taxpayer-funded artist always wants to crucify. This is "the best art."

The artist in this case is a Stanford professor named Enrique Chagoya, and he called his art outrage "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals." Typically, Chagoya was raised Catholic and claims the work isn't hostile at all, that it's about "faith and belief," that Christ was "about love and about sharing." Blah, blah. For good measure, gallery officials denied the image is sexual, as if men usually put their faces in other men's laps for other reasons.

There's more religious imagery in the multi-panel piece, including what appears to be the head of the Virgin Mary on a scantily clad cocktail waitress and another picture placing the head of Jesus on an obese female body in a one-piece bathing suit, riding a bicycle. The piece also contains written vulgarities (in English and Spanish).

Some might yawn. Here we go again. But what makes this story different is that Kathleen Folden, bless her heart, entered the gallery, broke into the artwork with a crowbar and ripped it to pieces. She didn't really destroy the art, because it was one of several prints, but she did express a rebuttal of sorts to the constant artistic besmirching of Jesus. Someone offended back.

Folden will be prosecuted for "criminal mischief" in the case. Chagoya is now the outraged one: "Should we as artists -- or any freethinking people -- have to be subjected to fear of violent attacks for expressing our sincere concerns?" Seeing as he's obviously free of shame, the Jesus-insulting artist added, "Let's exchange ideas, not insults." This is too rich.

Our media easily blame the offended Christian and not the artist. But make the image a Muhammad cartoon and our media would blame and shame the artist for being needlessly provocative and not the offended Muslim who would take action in response. Someone should ask Chagoya whether he's heard of Molly Norris, who merely proposed (and quickly retracted) "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" and then had to vanish from public view (along with her art) and change her name on the recommendation of the FBI.

The vast majority of the art community's shocking, or "transgressive," work is aimed at celebrating sin and the sexually "liberated." The National Endowment for the Arts recently announced that it would expend $12,500 to translate into English a novel by the Marquis de Sade, the libertine icon whose appetite for sexual violence inspired the word "sadism." The federally honored translator, John Galbraith Simmons, told CNSNews.com that this particular novel ("Aline and Valcour") is not pornographic and that "Sade is a figure who belongs with Shakespeare, with the greatest of authors."

The NEA also seems to find supporting art most exciting in the most "sexually liberated" cities. As part of the Obama "stimulus" package, CNS also found, the NEA distributed $1.4 million in special "stimulus" grants to 37 private arts nonprofits in the city of San Francisco, most of which is represented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That was more than the total number of NEA stimulus grants handed out to arts organizations in any other state except New York.

The artistic elites like to pretend that they're the sophisticates and that their opponents are the uneducated brutes. But looking at weird and junky cartooning like Chagoya's just makes you think the vandalism here wasn't committed by the woman with the crowbar, but by the guy with the paints.

SOURCE





Incredible bureaucratic pettiness is not confined to Britain

A group of high school football officials in Washington state were trying to support breast cancer research while working this week's games, so they made a pledge to donate all game checks to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Then, to top off the charitable gesture, they announced they would all use pink whistles during the games. Now there's a chance those whistles could cost the refs a chance to work state playoff games.

According to KING 5 News, officials who are part of the Pacific Northwest Football Officials Association who worked games on Thursday night were informed by the chair of the Washington Officials Association that they could face a two-game suspension for using pink whistles. The playoff ban is possible because the colored whistles violate the uniform protocol for state high school officials. Those uniforms allegedly call for black whistles only, and the WOA claims that no officials asked for permission to use pink whistles for their designated charity games.

The chair of the WOA, Todd Stordahl, told KING 5 News and MyNorthwest.com he has little choice but to discipline officials who used colored whistles. He claims that letting them continue without punishment would send the wrong message to student athletes. "They chose not to ask for permission, not to go the right route," Stordahl told KING 5. "It sends the wrong message to kids that are playing the game. 'If they broke the rules why can't I do the same.'"

Though no discipline has been decided upon, Stordahl indicated it was likely that pink whistle-blowing officials would be suspended for two playoff games. That would not only keep the referees from working at the annual pinnacle of their sport, but also cost them two game checks.

Considering that the referees were already donating one game check to charity, that would leave them with three fewer checks than in a typical season.

Meanwhile, MyNorthwest.com is reporting the PNFOA is arguing the dress code for officials does not technically specify that only black whistles be used, which means any suspensions would be unwarranted. That follows a Tuesday PNFOA meeting in which the group's president, Mike Livingston, said the board voted unanimously to use the colored whistles, regardless of penalty.

The officials themselves seem to be on board with the PNFOA decision, due to a commitment the referees felt to both breast cancer awareness and each other. There's little indication that the threat that came Thursday night from the WOA will keep them from using the pink whistles they intended.

"A lot of the guys in the association have been touched by breast cancer in some way," referee Jeff Mattson told MyNorthwest.com. "So we decided to take on the Susan G. Komen Foundation."

SOURCE





Petty bureaucratic nastiness in Australia too: Man fined $300 after saving a life

Britain is the world HQ for this sort of thing but there is always some nasty little bureaucratic prick everywhere who needs to use his powers to hurt rather than help people

A MAN who saved his mate's life after a jetski accident at Caloundra is outraged that he has now been hit with a $300 fine by authorities. Brisbane man Dave Burke suffered the hit to the hip pocket by Maritime Safety Queensland for "failing to report an incident".

The "incident" happened near the Caloundra Bar on Easter Sunday when a large wave knocked the 30-year-old and his 29-year-old friend off Mr Burke's jetski. The jetski sank and Mr Burke was picked up by an onlooker and taken back to the beach.

"I've then borrowed a jetski and gone out to get my mate," he said. "He was wearing a vest but he was pretty frightened. "He kept getting hit with some pretty heavy waves and because he had the vest on he wasn't able to get away from them."

Both men made it safely on to the sand of Bribie Island, where a female sunbather alerted the nearest life guard. Mr Burke said his friend was uninjured and had walked about 200 metres by the time the life guard and Coastguard arrived on the scene. "He told them he didn't need any transport but the Coastguard have insisted. "Now, because they've insisted on a transport that we didn't want, I've had to pay a $300 fine."

Mr Burke said the life guard advised him he would take care of any required paperwork and he retrieved his jetski with the help of another jetski rider.

Several weeks after the incident he was contacted by Maritime Queensland, who requested he make an incident report. He claims he did that but officials say it never arrived and he received his $300 fine in the mail last Monday.

Mr Burke said Maritime Safety Queensland viewed the incident as a "man overboard" that required reporting. "It's a jetski. If that is a man overboard, then Maritime should be chasing up the other 200 of these that happen every day," he said.

But Caloundra Coastguard Commander Bill Rowland said he did not recall the incident but the law was very clear. "He has to understand that as the skipper of a vessel... he has responsibility under the Marine Act to report an incident to a shipping inspector within 24 hours," he said. "The law is very clear on that. There is no ambiguity. "He obviously didn't do that and he got fined.

"I imagine there will be more to the situation than he is saying. "He would not be fined for falling off a jetski, he would be fined for not reporting an incident which the MSQ determined was a reportable marine incident."

Mr Burke said he had paid the $300 and while he would save his friend again if he had to, the fine had left a sour taste in his mouth. "When you've busted your arse to get to someone and also risked your own life – this is the thanks you get," Mr Burke said.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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24 October, 2010

Why 7/7 victims were left to bleed to death: Before a British policeman tries to save you he must consider 238 dangers to stop him suing bosses

By David Gilbertson (A former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner)

Amid the disturbing evidence at last week’s inquest into the deaths of the 52 victims of the 7/7 London bombings, there was a moment of great clarity.

Survivor Michael Henning described how he stumbled to safety from the wreckage of a bombed Tube train at Aldgate station and pleaded with a group of emergency workers to go underground and help injured and dying passengers. The firemen on the station platform seemed embarrassed and explained that they had been ordered to stay out of the tunnel because of fears of a second explosion.

Victims died in agony during the delay – and there proved to be no second bomb.

In lamenting the loss of the ‘Blitz Spirit’ – when wartime rescue workers risked their lives to pull people from bombed and blazing buildings – Mr Henning laid bare the uncomfortable truth: that today’s fire and ambulance crews and particularly today’s police officers are trained to see hypothetical risks to themselves as far more important than the actual safety of the public they are meant to serve.

The bombings of July 7, 2005, are not the only crisis in which this ‘risk assessment’ culture has been revealed. Last June, ambulancemen in Cumbria were widely criticised for standing by for vital hours while the gunshot victims of taxi driver Derrick Bird bled to death.

The explanation given later was that they had been refused permission to advance by the police because of fears that Bird might open fire on them. He was already dead and nobody will ever know how many lives could have been saved had the emergency services acted sooner.

I spent 35 years as a police officer before retiring as Deputy Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard and I’m dismayed but not surprised by the rise of this self-serving risk assessment culture.

Who can now imagine an officer having the bravery and initiative of the Metropolitan, Police Commander who at the height of the 1981 Brixton riots commandeered a fire engine, drove it into the centre of an angry mob and dispersed the crowd by firing water from the hoses? Anyone doing the same today would immediately be sidelined as a maverick taking unnecessary risks.

The root of the problem lies in a little-known and ill-advised piece of legislation passed in the dying days of John Major’s Government, when the eyes of Parliament and the country at large were on the forth­coming General Election.

The Police (Health and Safety) Act 1997 was introduced as a result of vigorous lobbying on behalf of the Police Federation, the ‘trade union’ of officers up to the rank of chief inspector, which had been demanding action after a number of policemen in London had been shot on duty.

Under pressure, the Yard allowed the introduction of body armour and the the replacement of truncheons with a range of new weaponry. The aim of the new law was to make policemen safer by applying the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act to the force.

However, the original legislation was designed not for the complexities of police work, but for heavy industry, and the result was a nationwide organisational panic, hastily designed training courses and a frenzy of unnecessary paperwork which continues to this day.

The fire and ambulance services, which were already covered by the 1974 legislation, became infected by the same ‘safety-first’ malaise. Of course, both services are operationally linked with the police – who often, as in Cumbria, take overall control of major incidents.

The current Metropolitan Police generic risk-assessment checklist, form RA1, is mind-blowing. It requires officers to choose from a menu of 238 possible hazards before conducting any sort of operational activity.

The assessment must be submitted, with covering forms RA2 and RA3, to a senior officer, who then has to consider what ‘control measures’ need to be applied, before submitting his recommendation – with form RA4 – to his ‘portfolio holder’ (jargon for the responsible officer) in order for the risk assessment to be confirmed and signed off.

Chief constables are liable for any breach and the spectre of legal action is no idle threat. In 2003, then Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir John (now Lord) Stevens and his predecessor Lord Condon faced the ignominy of being prosecuted at the Old Bailey for alleged breaches of health and safety regulations after two incidents in which constables fell through roofs while pursuing suspected burglars. Both were acquitted and the trial judge roundly condemned the £3 million proceedings.

But the damage was done. A generation of senior police, fire and ambulance officers have grown up in an environment where avoidance of risk and the fear of being sued by an ‘ambulance-chasing’ solicitor is more important than public duty.

Add to this the rise of the ‘compensation culture’, fostered by no-win, no-fee lawyers, and the nit-picking caution of insurance companies who demand to see paper trails and written risk assessments for every eventuality and it is easy to see how the organisational manager, rather than the operational leader, gained the ascendancy.

This corrosive culture of caution and risk-avoidance is why the Aldgate firefighters were ordered to stay at the gates rather than help the grievously wounded.

I believe there is still a Blitz Spirit within individual officers. But it is a natural instinct that is being suppressed. The embarrassment and shame Mr Henning saw on the faces of the 7/7 firefighters revealed that they felt deeply uncomfortable at being held back from doing their duty by rules and regulations beyond their control.

Idealistic firefighters, police officers and ambulance crews have always joined their services believing they may be called upon to put their safety on the line. But force discipline is taken seriously in the emergency services. Young officers are taught to follow procedures and ordered not to take risks by senior officers who have never known the old virtues of leadership, initiative, judgment and duty.

These are the officers (they are managers, rather than leaders) who visibly blanch every year when the police bravery awards are announced. Where you and I see heroes being decorated for acting without regard to their own safety, these paper shufflers see potential lawsuits, insurance claims and breaches of force discipline.

This Coalition Government, at least, seems to recognise that there is a problem. Lord Young spent three months poring over health and safety regulations and the Prime Minister last month pledged to free the emergency services and teachers from senseless health and safety rules.

But sweeping away the red tape will make no difference without a complete culture change. The police, fire and ambulance services must be made to understand that they owe a duty of responsibility first and foremost to the public who pay their wages, and that leaders, not managers, are needed to drive the message home.

Rigid adherence to procedure is not the easy way out. A good leader at Aldgate would have assumed authority and ordered his crews in to help injured passengers on a bombed Tube train. He would have dealt with the crisis first and worried about health and safety later.

And if a single life had been saved, they would have been hailed as fitting heirs to the wartime Blitz Spirit.

SOURCE





Extra £3bn overseas aid would have kept Harrier jet fighters flying for 20 years

Golden bedsteads for African dictators are top priority for Britain's centrist government. Too bad Britain will have no aircraft to put on its new aircraft carriers

British aid projects abroad are to be ‘branded’ with the Union Jack in an attempt to stem growing public anger over the amount spent on international development.

While most Government departments suffered savage cuts in last week’s Spending Review, foreign aid will rise by £3.1 billion by 2014. The amount is enough to keep the 80-strong Harrier jump jet fleet – which will be axed under the cuts – in the air for 20 years. Alternatively, it would pay for the building of 310 primary schools, or overturn the scrapping of child ­benefit for high earners.

A new Mail on Sunday/BPIX poll shows that four out of five voters think it was wrong to protect aid-spending while cutting defence.

Now International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has promised to show taxpayers what their money is buying by flying the flag over bridges, hospitals and other projects funded in poor countries.

The move follows criticism that – unlike schemes paid for by the EU – British enterprises remain unmarked, a product of the ‘old school’ diplomatic belief that it would look crass and ostentatious.

The idea will be pioneered in ‘more stable’ parts of Africa. But Mr Mit­chell has been warned of the danger it could pose to aid workers in such states as Pakistan or Afghanistan, where anti-Western opinion is rife. ‘We need to make British aid more visible. The Union Jack is the most identifiable symbol of the UK,’ said Mr Mitchell. ‘But we have to be ­sensible so we don’t put humanitarian workers at risk.’

The move follows irritation at the aggressive way the EU claims credit.

Mr Mitchell said MPs on the International Development Select Committee visiting a foreign project which was 90 per cent funded by the UK and ten per cent by the EU were ­infuriated by the Brussels flag flapping at the site. Locals thanked them in the belief that they were MEPs. Our poll shows 81 per cent of voters think it was wrong to raise overseas aid by 37 per cent to £9.4 billion, while defence is cut by eight per cent.

Much of our aid goes to pros­perous countries such as India. The world’s fourth-largest economy, with its own space and nuclear programmes, it received £295 million last year. Russia and China also ­benefit from UK largesse.

Last night Mr Mitchell said: ‘Aid is given to advance British interests, as with money given to Afghanistan to help protect national security. ‘But it is also morally right. The British instinct is to help people in developing countries, as demonstrated by our generous response to the recent floods in Pakistan.’

But Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: ‘I don’t think we can justify such a sharp hike at a time of such chilling austerity.’

This does more harm than good, Mr Osborne

Billions of pounds are spent by Britain every year on overseas aid – otherwise known as official development assistance (ODA). Much of this money ends up in the hands of the venal and corrupt political elite in poor countries.

Study after study shows that such spending does more harm than good. The spending review presented Chancellor George Osborne with a perfect opportunity to cut this counter-productive programme. He blew it. Spectacularly.

Instead of cutting ODA, Osborne announced plans to increase it by 50 per cent from £8.4 billion in 2010-11 to £12.6 billion in 2014-15 (this figure includes capital outlay in this country as well as the £9.4 billion spent overseas).

Over the next five years, the Government will borrow more than £50 billion to fund various dodgy activities in poor countries.

The spending review claims that ODA will now be ‘more focused on boosting economic growth and wealth-creation’. But for five decades, the governments of Britain and other rich countries have been sending money to the governments of poor countries in order to promote economic development, and it hasn’t worked.

Actually, it has backfired. Countries whose governments have received more ODA have grown more slowly than those that received less.

When governments receive handouts, they behave much like welfare scroungers. Instead of putting their countries to work by providing a friendly environment for business, they mooch around.

Of course, they nearly always agree to do their bit to promote development, just as welfare recipients swear blind that they are looking for a job. But there is a difference. Most welfare recipients live in council accommodation and many earnestly search for a job.

By contrast, many ODA recipients live in mansions, own fleets of Mercedes and fly first-class – and have no intention of reforming their economies. Why would they give up the backhanders for handing out aid-related contracts?

Economists now understand what conditions lead to growth – ‘economic freedoms’. The most important of them are secure property rights, free markets, low taxes and the rule of law. Countries with more economic freedoms grow faster than countries with fewer.

The spectacular growth rates since the Sixties of Hong Kong, Singapore, Mauritius and Botswana – and, more recently, China, India and Vietnam – can be explained by improvements in economic freedoms. While ODA might conceivably be used to encourage governments to improve their economic freedoms, this rarely happens. ODA was misconceived.

More HERE





The Islamic Memorial in Pennsylvania

Cynthia Yacowar-Sweeney of Canada Free Press notes in her startling article, “Under Construction – The Other 9/11 Mosque,”

"With eyes on New York, [on the Ground Zero mosque] it’s easy to overlook the other ground-zero mosque that is presently being built in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at the Flight 93 crash site. That 9/11 site is home to what will soon be the world’s largest open-air mosque disguised as a memorial, contends author Alec Rawls. After five years of insignificant media coverage and minimal public awareness, construction of the Flight 93 Memorial centerpiece is already in progress. The giant half-mile wide Islamic-shaped red crescent of maple trees is slated for completion next year on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, when the autumn leaves of the crescent’s trees turn a brilliant flaming red."

An earlier article by Clinton W. Taylor in The American Spectator, “Monumental Failure,” claims that the crescent of maple trees has been turned into a circle. According to Alex Rawls, who claims in his yet-to-be-released book,Crescent of Betrayal: Dishonoring the Heroes of Flight 93, that the whole memorial, once completed, will be nothing less than the largest outdoor mosque in existence. Rawls, reports Sweeney, claims there is hardly a facet of the final design that still does not incorporate or at least suggest basic mosque design features, most notably the crescent and a minaret-like tower, which face Mecca.

According to Rawls, this crescent is one of many mosque features embedded in architect Paul Murdoch’s winning “Crescent of Embrace” design, later changed mainly in name only, to “Circle of Embrace”. Another important and mandatory mosque feature is Mecca orientation for prayer. For this memorial to be a proper mosque, it must face Mecca. And Rawls proves it does, in his book “Crescent of Betrayal: Dishonoring the Heroes”. Using math and geometry, Rawls calculates that the center of the crescent points almost exactly towards Mecca. That makes the Flight 93 Memorial a mosque.

But, just as the “memorial” to the casualties at the World Trade Center has been mired in politics and governed by a cloying philosophy of “grief,” with the consequence that what was decided on – by committee, by consensus – will satisfy no one and will certainly not “memorialize” all who died on that site, so has the one scheduled for Shanksville. The Pentagon 9/11 memorial is also a study in “grief.” The Shanksville memorial may or may not have incorporated mosque features in its design. What cannot be denied is that the designis extraordinarily vacuous.

Going to the National Park Service website to study perspectives of the memorial, one is stymied. Click on the highlighted “The Memorial Design” link, and nothing happens; one must be satisfied with the NPS’s assurances that construction of the memorial is underway. All the other highlighted links work but that one:

Construction is underway. We are on schedule to dedicate the initial phase of the permanent memorial on September 11, 2011. Learn more about the design and the entire plan to construct the memorial.

Is the National Park Service (NPS) so ashamed of the design that, in the grand tradition of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it won’t permit anyone to see “what’s in it” until it is finished? Is it so nondescript, banal and noncommittal that the NPS knows that people will be astonished by how much the design is an exercise in blandness, and raise objections, if not for its non-statement, then for its mosque elements?

Yes, to both questions. As Clinton W. Taylor indicates in his American Spectator article, a circle of maple trees, a tower of wind chimes, and other oddities do not a monument or memorial make – except, perhaps, to the sensitive pragmatism of the designers and to those who sanctioned the design. Taylor writes:

I don't think Paul Murdoch Architects, the L.A.-based firm who came up with this harbors some deep affinity for Taliban hegemony. On the other hand, I do believe that the revised plan is so vague that it is possible to find any number of conflicting interpretations within its incoherent and nihilistic expanse.

The conflicts and controversy over these three “memorials” reveal an underlying but unacknowledged fear of Islam. No one wants to name the ideology or the religion of the hijackers. That would be “offensive” and serve to invite charges of anti-Muslimism or anti-Islamism or disrespect for Islam or prejudice against Islam. So virtually everyone involved in choosing memorial designs has steered a pragmatic middle course, and settled for something to “remember” the “victims” – not casualties, as they actually were, because we are demonstrably at war with Islam, just as all who died during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor are not referred to as victims, but as casualties. The committees, the boards, the designers all felt compelled to do something because of the historic nature of the attacks, and know that they must acknowledge it -- somehow.

As the rebuilding of the World Trade Center was subjected to a design competition and a public vote, which vote the bureaucratic entity in charge of the project chose to ignore, the design for the selected Shanksville memorial, with subsequent alterations, from over 1,000 submissions, was then subjected to deliberation by a committee and jury overseen by the NPS, which had bought the land on which the plane crashed. Why the NPS should have intruded on the matter is easily explained: No national monument or memorial can be erected without the approval of a bureaucracy.

Self-censorship is a deep-rooted psychological phenomenon, a congenital act of repression, as well as a political issue. It will not manifest itself in an individual in so revealing an introspective message as: “I’d just rather not provoke Muslims by accusing their brothers of being responsible for 9/11, I don’t want to be accused of bigotry or anything like that, I’m too cowardly, so I’ll just go along with whatever someone else suggests, so long as it’s not discriminatory or judgmental.” In such a mind, the door is shut and locked to such thoughts. It manifests itself in a circumspect advocacy of the safely banal and in virulent opposition to anyone not so repressed or self-censored.

Sweeney warns in her article that: "Intentional or not, the symbolism does matter and has remained an issue of grave concern for many, especially against the backdrop of the growing threat of Sharia Law in America - the legal code of the Quran which can be brutally oppressive when interpreted by radical Islamists who view the West as the enemy to be conquered."

The controversy over the Shanksville memorial design doubtless has been noted by Islamists here and abroad. Their chortles and snickers will grow louder and bolder when the memorial is completed. Sweeney concludes,

If Rawls is correct in his contention that the memorial is truly a victory mosque in disguise, then there is ample reason for concern, given that many American mosques are funded by Saudi Arabia, the country that gave America 15 of the 19 terrorists on 9/11, and are radicalized by its Wahhabi hardliners - meaning that these radicals choose and train the imams and also write or give final approval of the sermons.

If Rawls is correct, then one should expect to see, after the memorial is opened to the public, large numbers of Muslims flocking to it to say prayers, very likely in a special space provided to them by our dhimmi National Park Service.

SOURCE




You can have Islamic States but not Jewish ones, apparently

Israel 's government recently approved an amendment to its citizenship law by which those seeking to become naturalized citizens will take an oath of allegiance to Israel "as a Jewish and democratic state."

Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas' and Arab regimes profess to be outraged. Abbas said explicitly that he would never accept Israel as a Jewish state. This rejection is not new. To an Arab audience last year, Abbas said, "I say this clearly: I do not accept the Jewish State, call it what you will." Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, for example, describes the new oath as a "fascist" act that "proves" that Israel is a "racist country."

Why this rejection? The PLO official news agency, WAFA, explains, "A Jewish state endangers not only Palestinians, but also the Arab World, and the global security. It is a call for legitimizing a racist entity, built on pure ethnic and theocratic criteria."

This is nonsense. One fifth of Israeli citizens are non-Jews, almost all Arab and Muslim, who vote, attend the same universities, use the same buses and eat in the same restaurants services as other Israelis, though few perform military service, from which they are exempted. Israel has had Arab ministers, Knesset members, supreme court justices and diplomatic representatives something yet to be seen in respect of Jews (or any non-Arabs) living in Arab majority states. Iraq, with a Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, is the sole exception, courtesy of the American removal of Saddam's regime.

Moreover, what substance is there to the claim that it is racist to demand that the general identity of the state conform to that of the history and aspirations of those who founded it? Would that assertion leave Arab and Muslim states untarnished?

The answer is no: the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Great Jamahiriya and the Islamic Republic of Iran are the official names of just a few of Israel's neighbors, near and distant. Assad's own Syrian constitution's Article 1 declares that "the Syrian Arab region is a part of the Arab homeland" and its citizens are "part of the Arab nation."

Even more to the point is the way Palestinians define themselves. Fatah and Hamas in combination speak for the majority of Palestinians. The Fatah-controlled PA has promulgated a Palestinian Basic Law, Article 4 of which proclaims, "Islam is the official religion in Palestine" and "the principles of Islamic Sharia shall be the main source of legislation." Article 116 states, "laws shall be promulgated in the name of the Palestinian Arab people."

Note: not Palestinians, irrespective of ethnic or religious identity, but Palestinian Arabs. No comparable clause is to be found in Israel's Basic Laws.

Abbas has stated clearly that a Palestinian state is to be Jew-free: "I will not accept one Israeli to remain on Palestinian territory." PA law imposes a death penalty for the sale of land to a Jew. Rejecting Jewish sovereignty and murdering those who sold land to Jews was precisely the situation when Palestinians rejected a Jewish state as part of the 1947 UN partition plan, which proposed the creation of an Arab state and a Jewish state in the British Mandate of Palestine.

Hamas, in its Charter (which not so incidentally calls in Article 7 for the global murder of Jews) states, "Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Koran its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief."

Therefore, not only do Israel's Arab foes define their own existence in explicit national and religious terms, but they base their political orientation on these criteria to an exclusive, reactionary degree. In contrast, democratic norms enunciated in basic laws and the rule of law enforced by secular courts define the Israeli experience.

More HERE

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

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

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

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23 October, 2010

Fury as 1,000 Gypsies living on Europe's largest illegal camp leapfrog thousands of people on British welfare housing waiting list

Travellers at Europe’s largest illegal camp are to be treated as a priority for social housing because they will be considered homeless when they are evicted. Around 1,000 travellers who live at the Crays Hill camp in Essex are due to be removed from the site after losing a long-running legal battle.

The bill for taxpayers could be as much as £10million as police and council officials face having to launch a major two-week operation following concerns of violent confrontations.

Now it has emerged the travellers could have the right to leapfrog over 4,500 people on the housing waiting list in Basildon Council’s area – and have been ‘encouraged’ to apply by officials.

Critics fear they might cause a logjam for urgently needed accommodation, even though they have stated they want to be moved to new caravan pitches rather than flats and houses.

The situation caused outrage among the residents of Wickford, who have endured threats, petty crimes and anti-social behaviour, as well as seeing property prices plummet, since the travellers arrived almost ten years ago.

Len Gridley, 51, who lives next-door to the camp, said: ‘They should wait their time like everyone else. The young people of Basildon have lived here all their lives and they can’t get homes.’

Another neighbour, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said: ‘The travellers could go back to the sites they came from and they have houses all over the place. It’s not fair.’

Details emerged following a civil hearing on Wednesday between Basildon Council and four travellers – John Sheridan, 33, John and Mary Flynn, 77 and 79, and Barbara O’Brien – which is due to conclude next month.

The travellers argue they should not move into conventional homes and are demanding land to continue their traditional way of life.

Galin Ward, representing the council, told Southend County Court the travellers had been treated as priority cases. She said: ‘They are treated as being on the waiting list for housing under Basildon’s allocation scheme. ‘Mr Sheridan’s case began as long ago as 2006. They have come, if you like, to the top of the queue.’

Council leader Tony Ball later disputed the fact the travellers were on the waiting list, saying they were being treated as homeless. He added: ‘Making a homeless application is a different process but we have to offer a permanent home if a suitable one can be found, rather than temporary accommodation.’

A council spokesman explained the travellers were not top of the housing list but they would be-come a ‘priority’ for help if classed as homeless. He went on to admit they would not automatically go on to the homeless list but had been ‘encouraged’ to apply.

Travellers at the camp yesterday said more than 200 families could qualify for housing if declared homeless.

Michelle Sheridan, 33, daughter of John and Mary Flynn, said: ‘I don’t blame the settled community for being upset. There are more than 4,000 people on the waiting list and Basildon Council wants to move us off land which we bought and paid for and put us on the list for houses.’

The Tory-run council has 10,500 properties and access to 5,000 housing association homes. According to a survey by homeless charity Shelter, it would take three-and-a-half years to find everyone on Basildon’s waiting list a home if no one else joined.

SOURCE






Sex hysteria and inflating words



Three of the performers from Glee did a photo spread for GQ magazine that has the sex hysterics panting, breathing deeply, and ready to explode in a fit of verbal diarrhea.

The Gleeks who modeled in the spread were Corey Monteith, Dianna Agron and Lea Michele. Now, for the record let us notice that these three actors are all adults. To be precise Cory is going to be 29 on his next birthday while Dianna and Lea are both going on 25. Second, we should note that GQ photo shoot is not sexually explicit, does not include nudity and is merely suggestive at worst, if you consider such things bad—which I do not.

None of this has any impact on the hysterics at the Parents Television Council. Contrary to its name this is not a collection of parents per se. It is a Right-wing political organization founded by L. Brent Bozell, a far right activists and relative of William F. Buckley. Its whole purpose is to promote censorship, either voluntary or coercive if need be.

The slightly racy, but not sexual photos, however got PTC president Timothy Winters in a dither. He released a statement of monumental stupidity. He claimed that the photo shoot "borders on pedophilia." What the fuck?

How does a photo shoot of young adults in their mid to late 20s border on pedophilia?

Apparently the idiotic Winters assumes that since they play teenagers in a television show then this "borders on pedophilia." Apparently if one of them was in a movie where their character was killed then this would qualify as necrophilia as well.

Note that the way these loons use the word "pedophilia" that they are stripping it of any definition. We should be clear as to what this is.

Pedophilia is a persistent sexual attraction to prepubescent children. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV also says the adult partner must be at least 16 years of age and at least 5 years older than the child. Non-sexual photos of adults, even of adults who play teenagers on television, is not even on the borderline of pedophilia.

In fact, by definition, even if the photo shoot were of actual teenagers this would not be pedophilia. Notice what pedophilia is NOT. It is not the violation of age of consent laws. Age of consent is a legal definition for a status crime, it is not something that falls under the clinical definition of pedophilia.

Nor is pedophilia a sexual relationship with significant age differences, unless one of the individuals is a prepubescent child. A man of 50 who dates an 18 year old is not a pedophile since the 18 year old is not a prepubescent child.

Pedophilia is a sexual attraction to sexually immature children.

The PTC is trying to take advantage of a political trend that has been going on far too long. They know, like many lobby groups do, that a very large percentage of people are disturbed by sexual activity between adults and prepubescent children. The reality is that most people don't like pedophiles.

Since that is the case, political lobbying groups attempt to redefine pedophilia to include things which clearly are not included. The reason for doing so is to encourage the same sort of fear response from people that they display toward pedophiles. In other words, since people fear actual pedophiles, let's take non-pedophiles, redefine them as such, in order to get the same fear response people exhibit toward the real thing. And the reason to expand the fear is quite simply in order to achieve political goals that actually have nothing to do with pedophilia.

The PTC knows that this is not borderline pedophilia. But they don't care. What they want is to promote censorship. They are inherently anti-sexual and want to wipe out all such images.

The Glee stars didn't even do this modeling on television. And, I should note, that the outfits worn in the QC spread could be worn on almost any television show without fear of falling afoul of federal censorship laws.

Pedophilia is intentionally being inflated so as to mean what it does not mean, in order to accomplish other agendas by those doing the inflating.

What may be the PTC agenda here? Consider that Glee is one of the more pro-gay television shows on the air as one possibility. I also happen to think it one of the more moral shows, if we use morality in the real sense of the word. Morality, to me, is more how you treat others and less about whether you have orgasms and with whom. Right-wing moralists are obsessed with hating orgasms and sex, but have no problem with mistreating others or being intentionally cruel to others.

They would love to remove this show from television entirely, not because the show itself is portraying anything unacceptable in the realm of sexuality, but merely because it cuts against the anti-gay, moralistic campaigns of the Religious Right.

So they pretend that a magazine photo shoot is really about television. They also pretend that this is about pedophilia even though all the actors are sexually mature adults. They call it borderline pedophilia and a "near pornographic display" in order to justify their conclusion that it is "only masquerading as family show" (sic). The goal is to attack Glee, and since they couldn't do it on the the actual content of the show they looked for other reasons to attack.

They actually hate Glee quite a bit and warn that is totally unsuitable for anyone under the age of 16. They give it a "red light" warning because it is supposedly includes "gratuitous sex, explicit dialogue, violent content, or obscene language." That, quite simply, is bullshit, something that they would consider obscene language. But it is still bullshit.

All in all the show is rather sexually tame but PTC does mention one thing, which I suspect bother's them a lot: "One boy has recently come out of the closet..." That would be the character of Kurt Hummel, one of the characters who actually adds a great deal of pathos and damn good storey-telling to the series.

One of the worst trends in politics is how both Left and Right attempt to drag "the children" into every situation in order to panic parents into pushing for some other agenda, which in truth, is totally unrelated to children.

SOURCE




Australia: Bible ban 'political correctness gone mad'

AN unholy row has erupted over the hand-out of Bibles at citizenship ceremonies. Hobart and Clarence councils this year stopped handing out Bibles after they were told by immigration officials they were no longer needed, The Mercury reports.

Liberal senator Guy Barnett said the move was "political correctness gone mad".

Clarence mayor Jock Campbell said his council had been told by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship that if citizenship candidates wanted to swear an oath on a holy book, they needed to bring their own.

Hobart Lord Mayor Rob Valentine said his council began advising candidates this year they needed to bring their own. "We were told by immigration, quite some time ago, not to give Bibles out anymore," Ald Valentine said.

Ald Campbell said until this year Bibles supplied by the Bible Society of Australia had been handed out to participants who opted for the Christian oath. "I'd see it as an unnecessary change," he said.

Ald Campbell said the council had contacted the Bible Society for advice on what to do with 72 spare Bibles.

A Department of Immigration and Citizenship spokesman said last night it was not appropriate for organisations hosting citizenship ceremonies to give holy books as gifts and this had been the position of the department since 2003.

SOURCE






Australia: The "all males are potential rapists" scare now hits swimming pool changerooms

Feminist man-hatred has largely chased men out of primary school teaching -- as men rightly fear being exposed to suspicion and false accusations. Now that fear has spread

SCHOOLBOYS have been banned from a pool changeroom because adult male swimmers are afraid they'll be falsely labelled paedophiles.

Angry parents described the decision as political correctness gone mad after boys were forced to sit in wet swimmers on the bus back to school from the Hornsby Aquatic Centre in north Sydney. The rule, imposed this week, initially forced male students from six schools to huddle behind a stack of plastic chairs to get changed. They were later provided with access to an unused clubhouse.

When The Daily Telegraph visited the pool yesterday, two female Berowra Public School teachers guarded the door as a group of boys changed clothes.

A Hornsby Shire Council spokesman said the ban protected members of the public from facing false accusations and to protect the boys from any undesirables who could be in the change rooms.

"Hornsby pool received several complaints last week from members of the public with regards to schoolboys in the male change rooms," the council spokesman said. "The boys were unsupervised and the members of the public felt very uncomfortable changing in front of the boys. "One stated that he had an untrue allegation made against him several years ago in a similar environment."

Schools teaching students to swim have been ordered to have at least two male chaperones to look after children while they change.

Some of the school students are ignoring the new rules and using the male changeroom without an adult.

"The measures were put in place to protect the male students, members of the public and staff," the council spokesman said.

Alistair Hookway said he had no problem with his son Oliver, 7, using the pool facilities, calling the new rule an over-reaction. "I can't see any problem with a young boy using the change room like any adult can under proper supervision," Mr Hookway said.

Michael Rees, who has swum at the pool since 2006, said it was a smart move. "I have no problem with the decision. The kids make a lot of noise," Mr Rees said.

Local Government Association of NSW president Cr Genia McCaffrey described the case as "unique". "It is up to the individual council to resolve this issue based on their own unique community needs and circumstances," Cr McCaffrey said.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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22 October, 2010

More pandering to Muslims in Britain

Cafe owner ordered to remove extractor fan because neighbour claimed 'smell of frying bacon offends Muslims' -- even though no actual Muslims have complained!

A hard-working cafe owner has been ordered to tear down an extractor fan - because the smell of her frying bacon 'offends' Muslims. Planning bosses acted against Beverley Akciecek, 49, after being told her next-door neighbour's Muslim friends had felt 'physically sick' due to the 'foul odour'.

Councillors at Stockport Council in Greater Manchester say the smell from the fan is 'unacceptable on the grounds of residential amenity'.

The fan has been in Beverley's Snack Shack takeaway in the Shaw Heath area of the town for the past three years. Mrs Akciecek and her husband Cetin, 50, - himself a Turkish Muslim - work more than 50 hours a week buying, preparing and cooking hot and cold sandwiches and hot-pots for their customers.

Today mother-of-seven Mrs Akciecek said she plans to appeal against the decision. She said: 'I just think it's crazy. Cetin's friends actually visit the shop, they're regular visitors, they're Muslim people, they come in a couple of times a week. 'I have Muslim people come in for cheese toasties. Cetin cooks the food himself, he cooks the bacon.

'When we go to a cafe my husband wouldn't be offended by the smell of bacon. His friends are not offended by it, we have three visitors who come here for a sandwich, friends of my husband, and the smell doesn't offend them at all. 'My brother-in-law doesn't flinch if he comes and we've just taken out three trays of bacon. 'I'm going to find a local councillor. I'm waiting for the letter so I can appeal.'

The couple took over the take-away in 2007 from the previous owner and replaced the existing extractor fan, which had been there for six years, with a new modern one.

They claim they received no complaints about the cafe which is open from 7.30am-2.30pm six days a week, until around 18 months ago when they received a letter from environmental services to say their neighbour Graham Webb-Lee had complained about the smell.

Mrs Akciecek said: 'We've never had a problem about the smell because everything is pre-cooked. We cook it in the oven so there's no foul smell. 'It's pre-cooked so the smell isn't as strong when we're frying it off. It's like living next to someone who's cooking a Sunday breakfast but it's not constant it's just in the morning.

'It's been a sandwich shop for about eight years, cooking exactly the same stuff. The lady before me did double because they were actually building new houses across the road so she was really busy. She was here from 6am-4pm because they were so busy.

'They were there before me but they were also there when the lady who owns the business was here and she was doing double what we are. She had five staff, you can imagine how bust that shop was and they never complained at all.'

They say that the council's environmental services had been out to inspect their property after their neighbour complained about a foul odour last year, but they ruled that the smell was not causing a problem.

Mrs Akciecek said: 'Environmental services said everything is ok. They kept coming back and gauging it and said there was no problem and because they didn't take any action (the neighbours) complained again.'

The couple had never applied for planning permission as they had simply replaced an existing extractor fan with one of the same size and in the same position, but, following further complaints from their neighbour, they were informed by the council they would have to apply retrospectively as an objection had been raised.

They applied for planning permission in May this year, but the application was refused at a meeting of Stockport Area Committee on October 14. Mr Webb-Lee objected to the aplication - complaining that his Muslim friends refused to visit him becase they 'can't stand the smell of bacon'.

Mrs Akciecek, who also attended the meeting, said: 'He said he had a daughter with an eating disorder, the Muslim friends, and the bad smell all the time is making his clothes smell. 'The councillors agreed with him without even asking me what I thought. It was as if they didn't even realise I was there.

'This cafe is our only source of income. There are only two of us working, we haven't got any staff anymore. We work seven hours in the shop and my husband goes to the cash and carry and has all the prep work to do. We're working long hours. He does about 50 hours a week easy and I'm working about the same and we work Saturdays.

'The shop will be a lot harder work. It will be a good hour a day washing the walls down, I will not work anywhere with the grease falling down the walls. We can't move it anywhere. 'I'm not going to accept it and we're going to fight it.'

Mr Webb-Lee said: 'The vent is 12 inches from my front door. Every morning the smell of bacon comes through and makes me physically sick. 'I have a lot of Muslim friends. They refuse to visit me anymore because they can't stand the smell of bacon.'

A spokesman for Stockport Council said: 'The retrospective application was rejected on the grounds of residential amenity, as the committee felt the odours given off from the vent were unacceptable for neighbouring residents. 'We will ensure that the cafe complies with this decision and removes the extractor fan.'

SOURCE





The false rape accusations never stop coming in Britain

In these cases the politicized British police usually presume the man guilty until proven innocent, which is a travesty of justice

With her flowing blonde hair and fondness for tight jodhpurs, keen horsewoman Kate Woodhead could have galloped straight from the pages of a Jilly Cooper blockbuster.

Or so £200,000-a-year IT consultant Paul Joseph thought when he first set eyes on her as she showed him around a luxury rental property in Guildford. He didn’t take the property, but got to keep the girl.

Today, as Mr Joseph, 39, surveys the wreckage of his life, he rues the day he ever set eyes on Woodhead, 31.

Their volatile two-year ­relationship cost him dearly. ‘I was like a lamb to the slaughter,’ he says, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘She tried to destroy me and very nearly succeeded.’

For, in an act of revenge, Miss Woodhead, 31, stripped her ex-partner of everything he owned when his feelings towards her cooled. He lost his job, home, reputation, luxury cars, collection of paintings, his BMW motorbike, Rolex watches, tailored suits and other ­possessions worth more than £100,000. At one point he had nothing but the clothes on his back and 6p in his pocket.

So how did Woodhead achieve all this? By falsely accusing him of rape.

Earlier this month at Guildford Crown Court, Woodhead was found guilty of perverting the course of ­justice by making a false allegation of rape, fraud and two counts of theft following a three-week trial, during which a jury decided her dramatic story was a tissue of lies.

Denying the charges, she claimed Mr Joseph had raped her after ­drugging her with a sandwich laced with the tranquiliser Diazepam, adding salacious details about him being ‘turned on’ as he removed her jodhpurs.

Mr Joseph was put through the indignity of defending his reputation in court, even though he was not being charged with any offence. "If it hadn’t been so serious, I would have laughed,’ he says. ‘I wanted to walk out of the court in disgust at the pathetic circus Kate created.’

Woodhead is due to be sentenced next month and was warned by Judge Neil Stewart that a custodial sentence was ‘almost inevitable’.

Today, Mr Joseph can’t help but wonder if Woodhead would have given him a second glance if he hadn’t arrived at their first meeting at the rental property she was marketing driving a £70,000 Porsche convertible and wearing a Rolex watch. Mr Joseph says: ‘At the time I thought she was attracted to me, but I think the money side of things was there from day one.

She was the one who asked me out for a drink. I’m not a flashy person, just a typical boy who likes toys and gadgets.’

The pair began a relationship. In October 2007, eight months after their first date at a pub, Mr Joseph moved in with Woodhead into a £4,000-a-month rental property in Wisley, Surrey - complete with six acres of land, facilities for her five horses and a river at the bottom of the garden.

At first, everything was idyllic. But within months, the relationship became strained. Mr Joseph says he began to fear he’d made a mistake, as his new girlfriend started to show a rather more demanding, disturbing side to her personality. The couple initially agreed to share the rent, but Mr Joseph ended up paying all of it when Woodhead said she was too depressed to continue her work as a part-time property manager.

Mr Joseph - a divorced father of two sons - also soon came to realise that Woodhead was capable of dramatic behaviour when things didn’t go her way.

The relationship limped on until April last year when Mr Joseph told Woodhead it was over.

He spent the night in a local motel before returning to their home because he had nowhere else to go. There, Woodhead begged him to give her another chance. However, Woodhead had a secret agenda.

On April 10, she went to the police to make an allegation of rape against him. The court heard she gave a ‘detailed video interview’ but was reluctant to undergo a medical examination.

Bizarrely, she swore the police to secrecy, saying she would only pursue her complaint if they promised not to approach Mr Joseph until she had sorted out her affairs - including their house.

She returned home from the police station, in ‘a friendly and jovial mood,’ acting as though nothing was wrong. The couple made love that night and the next day she wrote in Mr Joseph’s notepad: ‘Sex was great last night.’ Strange behaviour for a woman claiming to have been raped.....

He was arrested four times, but no charges were brought. Then, on May 7 last year - still unaware of the rape accusation - Mr Joseph received a call from a colleague to say police had turned up at his workplace to arrest him.

‘I drove to Staines Police Station thinking they wanted to speak to me about the alleged assault. 'When I got there, a woman police officer said: 'I’m sorry to say an allegation of rape has been made against you by your ex-partner Kate Woodhead.'

‘It was a complete shock. It was absolutely devastating. I just wasn’t expecting it. I was in such a daze that to this day I can remember nothing of the interview. ‘It was only after I was bailed and left the station that I started to piece it all together and realised the date was from the weekend we’d spent together. I looked in my pad and read the note from Kate saying: 'Sex was great last night.'

I thought: 'How the hell?' I called the police and said: 'Look, I think I need to come back in because this is an open and shut case.'

‘After I was arrested, I sent a text message to all Kate’s friends saying: 'Kate has accused me of rape' and a group of them invited me to the pub. I was stunned by what they told me. Kate had told one friend that she was going to make me pay for wanting to leave her by telling the police I’d raped her and that I wouldn’t know what had hit me.’

The friend, in whom Kate Woodhead had confided her 'cry rape' plan, went to the police to give a statement saying she thought the allegations had been made up. She later appeared as a prosecution witness at Woodhead’s trial.

It was in August last year that Mr Joseph was informed that the investigation against him had been dropped and that Kate Woodhead had been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.

‘I was ecstatic when she was charged because it had become a full-time job trying to manage Kate and all her complaints to the police,’ says Mr Joseph, who lost his job as a result of the whole episode, but is now in employment again and living more modestly in Kent.

More HERE




On Israel: Change the Narrative

Melanie Phillips

Last weekend, I was a speaker at a huge CAMERA conference in Boston on the topic of the ‘war by other means’, the global campaign of demonization and delegitimization of Israel.

CAMERA stands for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. The work it does in combating the media onslaught against Israel, through careful, calm and forensic exposure of the lies and distortions being promulgated about Israel, is of enormous value.

But, for all the great work that it does, and for all the undoubted commitment of the conference’s 800-plus participants, it seems to me that so many American pro-Israel Jews — like those in this country and doubtless elsewhere — are missing the big picture.

This feeling was amplified by remarks made by another conference speaker, Wall Street Journal columnist (and former Jerusalem Post editor) Bret Stephens. As he said, much pro-Israel advocacy isn’t very smart because it is conducted from a permanent defensive crouch rather than an offensive position which sticks the accusations into Israel’s attackers.

So, for example, such friends of Israel fret endlessly about whether or not Bibi will extend the moratorium on new building in Jewish communities in the disputed territories, rather than ask the much more germane question of what the Palestinians are offering as an equivalent concession.

The answer to that one, said Stephens, is that they say they will keep the lid on terrorism. So their great concession is to stop killing Jews. Which kind of illustrates that, while the issue in contention for Israel is land, that for the Palestinians is mass murder.

But instead of accusing the Palestinians and their western supporters of this rejectionism — the true reason for the Middle East impasse — many self-professed ‘friends’ of Israel position themselves on the very ground that Israel’s enemies have chosen to conceal their real aim to obliterate it.

This ground defines the conflict instead as being about the boundaries of two states, Israel and Palestine. Hence the almost exclusive focus on the settlements and the territories, and on Israel’s supposed obduracy on these issues as the major obstacle to peace.

This is demonstrably absurd. The only obstacle to peace is the Palestinians’ continued and open refusal to accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and thus their continued objective to wage a war of extermination against it.

That is why, when the bulk of the territories was offered to them in 2000, their response was to start blowing up Israelis in buses and pizza parlours; that is why, when Jewish settlers were removed from Gaza, their response was to fire thousands of rockets at Israeli towns; and that is why ‘moderate’ Mahmoud Abbas says the Palestinians will never accept Israel as a Jewish state.

In short, the whole issue of the settlements and the territories is a giant red herring which has been swallowed wholesale by the west’s Israel-bashers. But many in the pro-Israel camp have precisely the same preoccupation, obsessing about whether Israel is making enough concessions on the settlements.

And so they endorse — albeit in softer and more anguished tones — precisely the same false, manipulative narrative employed by Israel’s enemies to conceal the real nature of this conflict.

As Stephens rightly observed, Israel’s defenders should be moving the conversation on to the subject of the ill treatment of the Palestinians by the rest of the Arab world — and towards each other.

I would go further. I would ask self-styled ‘progressives’ who obsess about removing the settlers from the disputed territories why they promote an agenda of racist ethnic cleansing designed to remove every Jew from a putative state of Palestine — while Israel, whose Arab minority enjoys full civil rights, is excoriated for ‘apartheid’.

Put the other side on the back foot where it belongs. Change the narrative.

SOURCE






Muslim minorities upset Germany's multicultural dreams

By Oliver Marc Hartwich (A German economist who has moved to Australia)

THE ghosts of multiculturalism are haunting a country that has failed with the concept. Last weekend, German Chancellor Angela Merkel became the unlikely gravedigger for multiculturalism when she rejected the idea of cultural pluralism, surprising even her own party members. Merkel is hardly known for her outspokenness.

The delegates at a gathering of young conservatives in Potsdam must have been shocked. "The approach of multiculturalism, to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other, has failed, utterly failed," the chancellor explained in a fit of unexpected clarity to rousing applause of the party faithful.

International commentators are divided about what to make of her remarks. Was Merkel stoking xenophobia? Was she using the issue to combat bad polling data? Or was she stating the obvious?

Whatever the answers to these questions, the global attention to her remarks proved that the idea of multiculturalism has become controversial in many Western societies. Although the troubles of integrating foreign migrants that Merkel referred to are a particularly German phenomenon, they hold lessons for the West.

Merkel has come late to the discussion in Germany. For months, debates about the integration of foreigners, multiculturalism and immigration policies have raged in Germany. The trigger was the publication of the provocatively titled book Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany Abolishes Itself). Written by Thilo Sarrazin, a Social Democrat ex-state treasurer of Berlin and central bank board member, it quickly became the bestselling non-fiction book in post-war German history with a run of more than a million copies.

Sarrazin broke with Germany's cosy consensual politics by painting a pitiless picture of the country's demographic decline, its over-stretched welfare state, and the failing education system. The most contentious issue, however, was his analysis of the state of integration. In purely economic terms, Sarrazin claimed, migration has been a loss-making venture for Germany.

What earned Sarrazin widespread condemnation from the political class, including Merkel, was his allegation that the problems of poor language skills, basic education, and high welfare dependency among migrant groups are perpetuating themselves from generation to generation. Higher fertility rates among migrants further reinforce this process. Sarrazin alleged that this was a sure path towards creating an ever larger underclass, segregated from mainstream society and shut out of the productive economy.

This analysis was more than Germany's political class was willing to hear. Sarrazin was made a political pariah, lost his job at the Bundesbank, and now faces expulsion from the Social Democratic Party. Remarkably, though, overwhelmingly large majorities have expressed support for his positions in opinion polls.

Perhaps the people were more honest about themselves than politicians. The problems with migrant groups in Germany - the result of decades of neglect on both sides of politics - are so manifest and well documented that they are impossible to ignore.

In the "economic miracle" years of West Germany's post-war reconstruction, the government recruited millions of migrants as so-called "guest workers" to fill the jobs for which no Germans could be found. It was also expected that, like good guests, these workers would eventually return home.

Left and Right were equally naive. The Left welcomed the newcomers with open arms without taking any interest in them. They assumed the migrants would automatically enrich Germany with their cultures, spices and habits. The Right showed an equal disinterest in them, since it was still believed they would only be a passing apparition.

Both views were wrong. At the very latest, it should have become clear when otherwise intelligent people started talking, entirely seriously, about "third generation (!) guest workers". By then, many of the guest workers were no longer working but welfare dependent.

In Berlin, three-quarters of all Turkish migrants lack any school qualifications, and nearly half of the unemployed are of Turkish origin. Almost 40 per cent of all Berlin-based Turks get most of their income via welfare payments. When German politicians now say multiculturalism has failed, they only have themselves to blame. Maybe multiculturalism has not failed but German politicians are just not good at managing it. It was they who failed to spot and stop the developments that Sarrazin now describes.

That Germans are openly debating the failure of multiculturalism does not make them xenophobic, though. The readers of Sarrazin's book and those applauding Merkel's recent remarks are neither Nazis nor racists. In truth, modern Germany is still probably one of the least nationalistic countries on earth. The lessons of the Third Reich have truly been learnt and are not forgotten.

A different realisation drives the German debate: a multi-ethnic society may be a reality but a multicultural country does not work. Every country needs clear ideas about its basic rights, values and language. The Germans had long ignored this lesson of traditional immigrant nations such as Australia, Canada or the US. Multi-ethnic Australia works better than multi-ethnic Germany because Australia is not a multicultural country but one built on its traditional British heritage and the values of the Enlightenment.

Ironically, Germany's lack of national pride and identity made it harder to integrate migrants. Why should they integrate anyway when Germans found their own culture so hard to love?

Germans are also learning the hard way that some groups are more willing to integrate into Western society than others. The debate is now about Islam for a reason. No integration issues are reported with respect to Danes, Poles or Vietnamese, all of whom live in Germany in great numbers.

Merkel may have sounded the death knell for multiculturalism, but its ghost will long be haunting the country from its grave.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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21 October, 2010

British government rolls back the State

George Osborne yesterday launched a historic attempt to turn around the juggernaut of state spending. After decades of relentless expansion, the Chancellor set out plans for nothing less than a dismembering of the welfare system and a rolling back of the bloated public sector.

Unveiling his ambitious reforms, Mr Osborne told MPs: ‘Today is the day when Britain steps back from the brink, when we confront the bills from a decade of debt.’

But middle-class families and women will be particularly hit as the Coalition battles to wipe out an unprecedented budget deficit. Households on incomes of £48,700 or more will lose most during four years of austerity.

The deepest cuts since the 1970s will see £18.5billion a year hacked from benefit spending. There will be a time limit on sickness handouts and a ban on young single Britons getting council flats to themselves at taxpayers’ expense.

Benefit claims are to be limited to £500 a week per household, regardless of family size, saving £270million. More cash will be clawed back through tax credit cuts.

But Mr Osborne’s vision for a leaner, fitter Britain will entail massive pain for the public sector. One in ten state workers will lose their jobs. Their pay will be frozen and they will have to contribute 3 per cent more of their income to fund their gold-plated pensions.

Women will be particularly badly hit. Two-thirds of public sector workers are female, and they will also be worst affected by a dramatic acceleration of the timetable to increase the state pension age for all.

In a blow to the retirement hopes of five million, the pension age for both men and women will rise from 2018, hitting 66 by 2020.

Hundreds of thousands more families will be hit by an end to child benefit for higher-rate taxpayers. The Chancellor said 1.5million households would lose the benefit, saving the taxpayer £2.5billion a year.

Overall, Whitehall spending will crash by a fifth by 2014. Local government, welfare spending, universities, the Home Office, justice, and culture, media and sport will take the biggest hits. Even the Queen will not emerge unscathed, with the Royals’ spending falling by 14 per cent by 2012/13.

Only the NHS, schools and – controversially – overseas aid will get more money.

The Chancellor concluded his long-awaited comprehensive spending review statement with an extraordinary political flourish. Instead of the predicted departmental cuts of 25 to 40 per cent, he revealed his reforms had limited them to 19 per cent on average. That is less than the 20 per cent planned by former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling.

Mr Osborne said that he had acted to restore ‘sanity to our public finances’ and deal decisively with the record peacetime deficit left by Labour. ‘To back down now and abandon our plans would be the road to economic ruin,’ he added. ‘We will stick to the course.

‘We will secure our country’s stability. We will not take Britain back to the brink of bankruptcy. We have made the decision to take the hard road – but it is the right road to a more prosperous, fairer Britain.’

The cost of government borrowing fell as business leaders and the financial markets welcomed the £81billion-a-year cuts package. Richard Lambert, of the Confederation of British Industry, said: ‘The spending cuts, though painful, are essential to balance the UK’s books and build its future prosperity.’
Public spending

But Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson said: ‘Today’s reckless gamble with people’s livelihoods runs the risk of stifling the fragile recovery. ‘We believe we can and should sustain a more gradual reduction, securing growth.’

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the measures represented the deepest cuts since the 1970s. Acting director Carl Emmerson warned it was ‘quite possible’ that the Chancellor would have to make further spending cuts or tax rises in order to meet his deficit target.

More HERE




The Multicultural Cult

Thomas Sowell

There was a reason why employers in the middle of the 19th century had signs that said, "No Irish need apply" -- and why employers in the middle of the 20th century no longer had such signs. It was not that employers had changed. The Irish had changed.

The Catholic Church for years worked to bring about such changes among the Irish immigrants and their offspring, just as various religious and secular organizations among the Jews, among blacks and among other groups worked to bring about changes within their respective groups. By and large these efforts paid off. All these groups were advancing, long before there were civil rights laws.

Yet today, attempts to get black or Hispanic youngsters to speak the language of the society around them are decried by multiculturalists. And any attempt to get them to behave according to the cultural norms of the larger society is denounced as "cultural imperialism," if not racism.

The multicultural dogma is that we are to "celebrate" all cultures, not change them. In other words, people who lag educationally or economically are to keep on doing what they have been doing -- but somehow have better results in the future than in the past. And, if they don't have better results in the future, it is society's fault.

Such notions have been tried, and failed, in other countries and times, long before they became a fashionable dogma called multiculturalism.

In 19th century Latvia and Bohemia, among other places in Eastern Europe, the great majority of Germans were literate, while most of the indigenous peoples around them were not. Not surprisingly, Germans had more education and skills, and enjoyed a higher standard of living.

In both Latvia and Bohemia, the German minority held most of the jobs requiring education and skills. But, in both places, the indigenous people -- Latvians and Czechs -- could rise by acquiring the German language and culture, and many did.

But, for the newly rising Latvian and Czech intelligentsia, that was not enough. They wanted to be able to rise without having to learn a different language and culture.

Nor were Latvians and Czechs unique. Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, Malays in Malaysia and Maoris in New Zealand are just some of the others who have wanted the same thing -- namely, to cling to their own culture and yet achieve the same success as people with a different culture.

Many of these efforts have failed and few have succeeded. But what is truly painful is how often the polarization created by these efforts led to tragedies, such as civil war in Sri Lanka and brutal mass expulsions of millions of Germans from Czechoslovakia, to the detriment of both the Germans and the Czech economy.

The history of blacks in the United States has been more complicated. By the end of the 19th century, the small numbers of blacks living in northern cities had, over the generations, assimilated the culture of the surrounding society to the point where they lived and worked among the white population more fully than they would in most of the 20th century.

In New York, Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia and other Northern cities, black ghettos became a 20th century phenomenon. It was after the massive migration of far less acculturated blacks out of the South in the early 20th century when a massive retrogression in black-white relations took place in the Northern cites to which the migrants moved.

The blacks who moved to these cities were of the same race as those who were already there, but they were not the same in their culture, values and behavior. No one complained of this more bitterly than the blacks already living in these cities, who saw the newcomers as harbingers of a worse life for all blacks.

This same process occurred on the west coast decades later, largely during World War II, when the same influx of less acculturated blacks from the South marked a retrogression in race relations in places like San Francisco and Portland.

Cultural differences matter. They have always mattered, however much that may be denied today by the multicultural cult.

SOURCE




Disapproval of Islam Is No Indication of Bigotry

Michael Medved

Does a negative opinion of Islam amount to conclusive evidence of bigotry?

Those who warn of a raging frenzy of American “Islamophobia” base their case on the assumption that anything less than enthusiastic approval of The Religion of Peace automatically qualifies as hate-mongering and ignorance. On ABC News, Christiane Amanpour pointed to recent survey figures on public uneasiness with Islam to prove that Muslim Americans faced an unprecedented tsunami of hostility and discrimination. Actually, the Washington Post/ABC poll she repeatedly cited hardly indicated seething, volcanic anti-Muslim sentiment: less than half the public (49%) held generally “unfavorable” views of Islam, while fully 37% felt favorably disposed toward Koranic values.

Far from reflecting an alarming new surge of groundless hatred, these figures remain virtually unchanged from results of an identical Washington Post/ABC survey from four-and-a-half years ago (March, 2006), which showed 46% unfavorably inclined toward the Muslim faith.

The real question raised by all such expressions of public opinion should confront the nearly 40% of Americans who say they feel positively impressed by Islam and its influence.

What aspect of Muslim teaching and achievement most inspires such respondents? The daily reports of suicidal violence from every corner of the globe, with fellow-Muslims (invariably) as the primary victims? Or the well-known association of Islamic piety with open-hearted respect for the rights of women, homosexuals and infidels? Or is it the sterling record of economic progress, cutting age technology and social justice achieved by precisely those societies (like Saudi Arabia, Iran or Afghanistan) that take Shariah law most seriously? Or would Islam’s American admirers cite the record of Muslim charities in the U.S., the most prominent of which (remember the Holy Land Foundation?) have been shut down by the government for their lavish support of murderous terrorist groups like Hamas?

Quite naturally, the people who look favorably on Islam feel unconcerned over its ancient teachings or loathsome perversions in benighted corners of the globe, and focus instead on the law-abiding, patriotic, family-loving Muslims who have established benign communities throughout the United States. But even the decent people who reside in those communities rightly worry that their impressionable off-spring may become too religious, too zealous in their fervent commitment to The Prophet and his teachings.

There is no real parallel to this fear in Christian or Jewish homes. Christian parents may feel embarrassed by their religiously reborn children suddenly studying the Gospels obsessively, or witnessing obnoxiously to family or friends, but they needn’t worry about wayward kids blowing up themselves or others in the name of Jesus. Jewish mothers and fathers may hate the scraggly beards and black hats adopted by a suddenly Orthodox generation, or resent the refusal to eat non-kosher food at home, but even the most fanatical of their kids feel scant temptation to travel to remote mountain hideouts as part of an international terror conspiracy.

By contrast, the secularized, prosperous parents of the Christmas Day Underwear Bomber (Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab), or the would-be Times Square Bomber (Feisel Shahzad), or the Fort Hood Shooter (Nidal Hassan), or European-educated engineering graduate Muhammad Atta (and his eighteen 9/11 accomplices) can testify what happens when even products of sophisticated, privileged families become too deeply entangled in Muslim fundamentalism.

The spiritual leader of the proposed Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero insists that the true problem is extremism, not Islam itself. “The real battlefront today is not between Muslims and non-Muslims,” declared Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to the Council on Foreign Relations, “but between moderates of all faith traditions against the extremists of all faith traditions.”

This ignores the huge differences --both quantitative (Islamic radicals are vastly more numerous) and qualitative (Muslim fanatics endorse uniquely murderous rhetoric and deeds) – between extremists in one faith tradition and all others.

A Christian fundamentalist may talk about burning Korans; Muslim crazies regularly burn buildings- and people. Even after Pastor Terry Jones called off his idiotic barbeque of the Islamic holy book, Muslims reacted with deadly riots in Kashmir that killed 16 and wounded sixty, while burning several schools and other government buildings.

Some Americans may dislike the style of worship in Pentecostal or Catholic churches, but the faithful (no matter how tackily dressed) never surge out of their sanctuaries on Sundays with fury and blood-lust, looking for non-believers to stone and property to destroy. Every Friday, however, somewhere in the vast Muslim world, some congregations of the devout react to their uplifting prayer services by going directly from their mosques to rousing orgies of rage and violence.

This observation isn’t an expression of bigotry; it’s a factual product of reading the newspaper, and regularly monitoring international news. The lame-brained insistence that all faith traditions deserve equal respect (or equal condemnation) doesn’t demonstrate tolerance or broad-mindedness; it expresses, rather, a refusal to take any religion seriously enough for honest evaluation of its virtues and flaws.

Reservations about Islam, and even fears of the Muslim faith’s influence on the world at large, don’t constitute paranoia or intolerance. These concerns represent an honest and reasonable response on the part of a significant segment of the public to a serious global challenge to the values that Americans hold most dear.

SOURCE






Australian Labor Party suspends top politician over censorship row

Good for her! Rather strange that there seem to be a lot of Leftist morality police around these days. This lady has fallen foul of them

NSW upper house president Amanda Fazio has been suspended from the Labor Party for crossing the floor last night over censorship legislation.

The Australian today exclusively revealed Ms Fazio's objections to a new bill that will give police the quasi power to classify material in adult shops as x-rated, and prosecute retailers on that basis.

Ms Fazio, a leading member of the NSW Right but a long-time supporter of libertarian causes, said the legislation was a “joke” and police should spend their time solving crimes with victims.

A senior NSW Labor source said this morning the rules on breaking ranks with caucus were “crystal clear” and Ms Fazio's party membership would be “in limbo” while a party disputes committee deals with the matter.

Caucus convenor Robert Coombs is expected to issue a statement shortly.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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

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



20 October, 2010

One in ten British public sector workers faces axe

Good for Britain if it actually happens

One in ten public sector workers will lose their jobs in the bloodiest spending cuts since the Second World War. Millions more will be told to take a pay cut or reduce their hours as George Osborne ushers in four years of pain today.

The Chancellor is pinning his hopes on the private sector creating hundreds of thousands of jobs as he sets out plans to repair the battered public finances.

State workers, who currently account for one in five of the workforce, are bracing themselves for compulsory redundancies, vacancies left unfilled and recruitment freezes.

The public sector, welfare, tax credits and the Home Office and Ministry of Justice will all take the strain of paying off Britain's record budget deficit in moves expected to include:

* A dramatic acceleration of the timetable to increase the state pension age;

* Entire areas of state activity handed over to businesses, charities and citizens;

* Further cuts to tax credits, removing them from middle earners;

* A reprieve for child benefit for 16 to 19-year-olds after a dramatic last-minute U-turn by Mr Osborne;

* Cuts of around 50 per cent to the housing budget in an end to 'a council home for life';

* The biggest sell-off of state assets since Margaret Thatcher to raise more than £20billion.

The action comes as the Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King last night warned that Britain's 'nice' decade of low inflation and solid economic growth will now be replaced by a 'sober' decade.

As the Chancellor sharpened his axe, key details of the Government's radical deficit reduction plan were unwittingly revealed by Liberal Democrat Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander.

He was pictured in the back of a car in Downing Street reading a document predicting that 490,000 state employees would lose their jobs by 2014-15 as a result of cuts of more than 50 per cent by some departments.

It made clear the Government accepts forecasts on public sector employment from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. It predicts that by 2016, the figure for job losses will have reached 610,000, or one in ten of the bloated public sector workforce.

Around 14,000 jobs are to go at the Ministry of Justice alone - 11,000 of them from the front-line, meaning posts like prison officers, probation officers, and magistrates' court staff will be lost.

Mr Alexander's papers also disclosed that millions of public sector employees who survive the cull will be told they must take a pay cut or reduce their hours.

It said state employers will be encouraged to make 'voluntary deals with staff on pay restraint or reduced hours to save jobs'.

Ministers are poised to unveil the biggest sell-off of state assets since the Thatcher era in a bid to plug Britain's budget deficit.

The Royal Mint, the Tote and Britain's air traffic control service are all being lined up for privatisation as part of plans to raise at least £20billion.

Ministers met in secret last week to thrash out details of the sell-off, due to be unveiled by George Osborne today.

Other assets which could be considered for sale include the QE2 conference centre in London, the Government's stake in Channel 4, the Dartford Crossing section of the M25, the remainder of the student loan book and perhaps even the Met Office.

The Government has already announced plans to sell off the Royal Mail and the high speed rail link between London and the Channel Tunnel. The moves will involve tens of thousands of workers moving into the private sector.

Departments are facing cuts of around 25 per cent on average under the Comprehensive Spending Review. But they will be deeper in some areas because of a long list of budgets exempted from spending reductions.

Mr Alexander's document revealed the Government plans to contribute £2.9billion towards international efforts to tackle climate change. The coalition is also ring-fencing budgets for the NHS, schools, international aid and social care for the elderly.

And following a furious row over plans to remove child benefit from higher rate taxpayers, the Chancellor has backed away from a move to save £2billion by reducing the age limit for the payment to 16. Lib Dem members of the Government are understood to have argued the move would hit poorer families with children staying on at school.

Mr Osborne will tell MPs that without radical action to rein in Labour's reckless spending, international confidence in Britain would collapse, pushing up interest rates and triggering an economic calamity.

Government sources dismissed as 'ridiculous' suggestions that Mr Alexander had deliberately left his paperwork on display in order to prepare the ground for today's announcement. Officials said the Chief Secretary had been reading a briefing document which was never meant for release, rather than the spending review itself.

The document said the public sector pay bill accounts for around half of departmental spending - meaning pay would 'inevitably' be hit by the deficit reduction programme. It stressed that addressing the deficit was 'unavoidable', and there would be an 'inevitable impact' on state workers.

It indicated that the coalition is pinning its hope on stimulating the wider economy, with policies designed to 'facilitate a movement of jobs from the public sector to the private sector'.

Sources said transport had done 'better than expected' in today's deal, with free bus passes for pensioners protected and big infrastructure projects, including Crossrail, going ahead.

However, rail travellers face steep fare rises - expected to be at least 30 per cent over the next four years - as state subsidies are withdrawn. University funding will face huge reductions as the current £3,000-a-year cap on tuition fees is lifted.

Independent economists forecast budget cuts of between 15 and 20 per cent in most departments under Labour's own plans. But the Coalition is committed to reducing the deficit more quickly, meaning deeper cuts.

More HERE





Medieval paths in Iron Age British village deemed too dangerous by health and safety chiefs



A perfectly preserved medieval village is set to lose its iconic cobbled paths over health and safety fears, it emerged today. The historic settlement of Dunster, Somerset, dates back to Bronze and Iron Age Britain and is regarded as one of the most-perfectly preserved medieval villages in England. The village attracts thousands of visitors a year because of its 1,000-year-old castle and quaint features including the medieval cobbled streets.

Now health and safety chiefs have ruled them to be too dangerous and a working group is considering replacing them with smooth-surfaced roads at a cost of more than £100,000 'to bring the village into the 21st century'.

But residents have slammed the ruling and are demanding that the cobbled streets be repaired to protect the 'character' of the village.

The Dunster Working Group, comprising West Somerset Council, Somerset County Council, Exmoor National Park Authority and the local parish council, was set up to find ways of 'enhancing' the village.

Chairman Paul Toogood said its plan would see cobbles removed from the centre of the streets to make them wheelchair friendly. He said: 'We have no choice. This year we've had to call the ambulance five times for people who have fallen over on the cobbles. 'Our aim is to enhance the village. No money has been spent on it for a generation. From a health and safety point of view the pavement is not fit for purpose.

'We are just trying to improve the village for people who live here, as well as the visitors. At the moment access is not easy to shops or homes on the east side.

'We've got to bring the village into the 21st century. We want an area in the middle that is wheelchair and buggy friendly.'
Residents of Dunster, listed in the Domesday Book, fear the village will be stripped of its character if the cobbled streets and pavements are removed

Residents of Dunster fear the village, listed in the Domesday Book, will be stripped of its character if the cobbled streets are removed

Mr Toogood added that the streets are currently in a state of disrepair because local business owners are afraid of facing litigation if they fix the cobbles themselves. He said changes needed to be made because some stones had been dislodged creating awkward ridges and holes.

But locals are demanding that that the cobbled streets be repaired rather than replaced. Resident Donna Richards said: "I often walk through the village with a pushchair and young child and, yes, repairs need to be made. But I don't see them as a problem worthy of replacement. 'It is vital to keep the history of the village as it is. It is more important now, more than ever, to keep the character.

'In generations past these cobbles have been left for us to see and experience, so do we have the right to take it away from future generations?'

One elderly visitor to the village, Giles Parks, 69, said he was managing to cope with the cobbles despite using a walking stick. He said: 'Get rid of something as old as this? They must be joking. I'm on holiday from Derbyshire and where I live the council is paying huge sums of money to put in cobbled paths in an old part of town. 'Why can't people leave things alone? It's mainly because this village has been left alone that we've come to see it.'

Dunster began as a Saxon village and became famous for making a thick type of wool called Dunsters.

In August, a similar proposal was put forward to replace a cobbled path at medieval Sherborne Abbey in Dorset which dates back to 705AD. Councillors feared that someone would trip on the uneven surface and sue them for compensation.

SOURCE





Once a place of free inquiry, Europe is slowly stifling itself

Andrew C. McCarthy

For a prosecutor, it was a simple matter of cause and effect. First, I showed that the “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel Rahman, called for acts of violence: He admonished Muslims that Allah commanded them to slay non-believers and precisely quoted Islamic scriptures to back up that admonition. Then I showed that Muslim terrorists responded to these scripturally based exhortations by plotting and carrying out terrorist acts.

For this, the Clinton administration presented me the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award, the Justice Department’s highest honor. For doing exactly the same thing, the justice department of the Netherlands presented Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders with an indictment.

I got the pretty glass eagle for the mantelpiece, and the Blind Sheikh got sent to prison.

Wilders, by contrast, got to stand in the dock while the global Islamist movement got to savor the possibility of something far more valuable than a trophy: a white flag draped over the shriveling remains of free speech. Wilders has been acquitted, but his trial was nonetheless damaging to what remains of the Western tradition of free discourse and inquiry.

For demonstrating cause and effect, for graphically displaying — most notoriously in his short film, Fitna — that Islamic scriptures beget jihadist atrocities, Wilders was put on trial in the Netherlands. In this Kafkaesque situation, as Diana West reports, it would have been hard to conjure words more frightening than the ones that tripped off the Dutch prosecutor’s lips:

“It is irrelevant whether Wilders’ witnesses might prove Wilders’ observations to be correct. What’s relevant is that his observations are illegal.” And so they might easily have proved to be, in much of Europe.

Wilders was charged with speaking words and producing images that were discriminatory toward Muslims, and that insult and incite hatred against Muslims. Such speech is criminal in the Netherlands, as it is throughout Europe, which teems with defiantly non-assimilating Muslims and which has responded to the resulting cultural confrontation with the societal surrender known as political correctness.

That the things Wilders has said may be true made no difference in the case. It is immaterial whether the bracing opinions he has expressed are grounded in fact, or that the success of a free society hinges on its being an informed society. Wilders, says the prosecution, was guilty simply for saying these things. In the new West, we are unconcerned with the pathologies that besiege us. But those who call our attention to the pathologies — who dare to puncture our “religion of peace” fantasy — must be quelled. After all, they may get Muslims upset, and you know what happens when Muslims get upset.

Here in America, I can still write the last part of that last sentence — for now. But maybe not for long, if President Obama has anything to say about it. Last spring, the administration joined with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to propose a United Nations resolution that condemns “negative stereotyping of religions.” The resolution exhorts all nations to take “effective measures” to “address and combat” incidents involving “any advocacy of … religious hatred” that could be construed as an “incitement” not just to “violence” but to any form of “discrimination,” or even to mere “hostility.”

We needn’t worry about that here, you tell yourself. We’ve got the First Amendment. Don’t be so sure. The anti-hostility resolution states that the “effective measures” it urges are compelled by each nation’s “obligations under international human-rights law.” When we look at one source of such law, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (foolishly ratified by the first President Bush, after U.S. Senate consent, in 1992), we find — nearly verbatim in Article 20 — the same speech-suffocating standard proposed by Obama and the OIC: “Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”

Even before Elena Kagan made it to the Supreme Court, there existed a five-justice majority (including Anthony Kennedy) for the proposition that international and foreign law should be weighed in interpreting American constitutional guarantees. Justice Kagan keeps that bloc intact, sliding comfortably into the shoes of her predecessor, Justice John Paul Stevens. She is also known to harbor hostility toward free speech: As an academic she belittled its value, and as solicitor general she argued that “categories of speech” may be suppressed if the government, in its wisdom, decides the “societal costs” of permitting them are too high.

When it comes to Islam as a category of speech, there is no doubt that our current government reflects the transnational progressive consensus: the Western tradition of critical examination must give way to the Muslim tradition of submission. This is why when jihadists attack, the self-loathing elite’s response is to wonder what we did to offend them. It is also why when Muslims rioted over harmless cartoon depictions of their warrior-prophet as a warrior-prophet, the State Department’s harshest condemnation was reserved not for the marauders but for the offending newspaper. It is why Yale University Press would only publish a book about the cartoon controversy after the author agreed to purge from its pages the cartoons themselves. It is why the Washington Post just spiked a “Where’s Mohammed?” spoof in which the prophet nowhere appeared — and, by this craven act, validated cartoonist Wiley Miller’s point about Western timidity.

At least Mr. Miller is around to tell the tale. Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris had to go underground for merely suggesting an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” — as Mark Steyn observes, even being a good lefty who never followed through and tried to disavow the whole business didn’t help her. The threat whose name must not be spoken was too much. On the FBI’s advice, she disappeared without a trace, much to the relief of her former employer, the Seattle Weekly.

The Blind Sheikh has more maladies than I’ve got space to describe them. He can’t build a bomb, hijack a plane, or carry out an assassination. His one and only capacity to cause mayhem is his renowned mastery of Islamic doctrine. We know little about Islam. By comparison, the Blind Sheikh is a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence, graduated from storied al-Azhar University and steeped in that ancient institution’s literalist, militant construction of Muslim theology. We are instructed by our betters to view Islam as a religion of peace — indeed, as one of our best assets in the fight against terrorism. To the contrary, the Blind Sheikh instructed the faithful that Islamic scriptural commands — Allah’s personal commands — to violence and intolerance mean exactly what they say.

Because of his exalted clerical status — that is, owing to his authority in Islam and nothing else — the Blind Sheikh was able to spur Muslims to terror. Upon demonstrating this fact, I was given an award, while he was locked in a prison cell.

Fifteen years later, for making a similar demonstration, Geert Wilders risked being the one locked in a prison cell. Fifteen years later, when Iraq’s Ayatollah Ali Sistani says Islam requires the killing of homosexuals, it is considered preaching; when Geert Wilders says it, it is a hate crime.

I don’t know if the Netherlands gives its prosecutors baubles for proving this sort of thing. Wilders’ prosecutors seem unlikely to be lauded: They have now tried to dismiss the charges against him for a second time, the first (in 2008) having been rejected by Dutch jurists who seem hell-bent on nailing Wilders and whose approval is needed before the case can be dropped.

I do know the Islamists at the OIC have already been handsomely rewarded by this travesty. Their campaign to impose sharia proscriptions against speech unfavorable to Islam — against telling uncomfortable truths about Koranic injunctions and the terrible consequences that flow from them — is steadily vanquishing the West’s commitment to discourse and reason.

SOURCE




Nutty EU court says fathers in Spain are entitled to take "breastfeeding leave"

Too bad if their tits don't work

Working dads may wish to take Spanish citizenship after reading this. Europe's top court has ruled that working fathers in Spain are entitled to take "breastfeeding leave" daily even if the child's mother is not employed.

The new ruling by the European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg means that both the mother and father are allowed to leave work for an hour during the day or reduce their working day by half an hour during the first nine months following the birth of a child, the Telegraph reported.

In Spain, fathers are currently only allowed to apply for breastfeeding leave if the mother is employed full time.

But, the top court ruled last week that the Spanish law, which was instituted in 1900 to facilitate breastfeeding by the mother, caused an "unjustified discrimination on grounds of sex" as fathers do not have the same rights as mothers.

The Spanish man who challenged the law, Pedro Manuel Roca Alvarez, said his request to take breastfeeding leave from his job in Galicia was rejected because the mother of his child was self-employed.

Such a refusal, the court said, could have the effect of forcing self-employed mothers to limit their work because the father cannot share the burden.

Not giving dads the same right as mums in this case "is liable to ... keep men in a role subsidiary to that of women in relation to the exercise of their parental duties," the court ruled.

Breastfeeding leave should now be considered as "time purely devoted to the child" in order to reconcile family life and work after maternity leave, the court said.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



19 October, 2010

'Don't blame racism for your problems'

Black British Archbishop urges young black men to work hard for success

The Archbishop of York has urged young black people to stop blaming racism for their problems. Dr John Sentamu warned that prisons, mental health units and young offender institutions held too many black people. He told a new generation: ‘Your future success does not lie in guns, gangs and knives or in the worship of celebrities.’ Instead, they should ‘work hard’ and ‘stay focused’, he said.

The Ugandan-born Archbishop, second in the hierarchy of the Church of England, also criticised African nations for too readily trying to blame their former ‘colonial masters’ for their difficulties.

He pointed to African corruption and lack of democracy and warned that nations were squandering their opportunities.

Dr Sentamu has become a major figure in race relations in Britain over the past decade. He was a highly influential member of Sir William Macpherson’s tribunal that reported into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1998 and condemned police for ‘institutional racism’. He also headed the inquiry into the killing of Damilola Taylor on a South London estate. And he has regularly reminded police forces about the number of times that officers have stopped him and searched him.

Dr Sentamu, who marked Black History Month with his interview, added: ‘Today our prisons and mental health units are disproportionately full of men and women from minority ethnic backgrounds.

‘Our young offenders’ units are full of young black men, many of whom under-achieved at school and thought that the only way out to earning a quick buck was by committing crime. ‘As parents and as a nation we have failed our children.’

But he told young people that they should fight prejudice and bias by challenging injustice.

‘Work hard at your education, stay focused and don’t sit around waiting for success to be delivered to you on a plate, because it won’t be. Don’t blame someone else, for you have the energy, potential and creativity so use it for the good of humankind. Don’t waste it. ‘Your future success does not lie in guns, gangs and knives or in the worship of celebrities but in the pursuit of study and hard work and in valuing who you are under God.’

The Archbishop said African nations had to cope with trade tariffs loaded in favour of Western countries and multinational companies that plundered resources from failed states.

But he added: ‘We cannot lay all the blame of Africa’s ills at the feet of Europe and the colonial masters.’ ‘The high number of African nations that have rewritten their constitutions in order to stay in power indefinitely is staggering. ‘This cannot be healthy for democracy nor for the nation’s poor.

‘Europe may have underdeveloped Africa but I believe we’ve had the opportunity since to shape our future and destiny and are in danger of squandering these opportunities.’

SOURCE






Victims of 7/7 bombings in London 'died in agony because of red tape that stopped rescue efforts', says survivor

Injured victims of the July 7 terror attacks on London were left to die in agony because of health and safety protocols, a survivor claimed yesterday. Victims on the Aldgate train were screaming in pain for up to 40 minutes before emergency services were allowed near the bomb site.

Michael Henning, 43, said he saw firemen waiting on the platform at Aldgate, as the wounded lay dying barely 150ft away. The injured insurance broker screamed at the 999 workers: ‘Why aren’t you down there, people are dying down there?’

A bloodied and battered Mr Henning was pictured on the day of the attacks wearing a medical eye patch. Yesterday –five years on – he appeared to have made a good physical recovery.

But he said he believed some of the 52 victims of the terror attacks might have survived if they had received faster medical care. He told the July 7 inquest: ‘Even those who were too severely wounded to ever survive, some of them died in agony for 20, 30, 40 minutes. ‘At least they should have had the dignity of having some morphine. If you’re dying in agony for half an hour, you deserve some sort of dignity and some sort of pain relief.’

Seven people died on the rush-hour train at Aldgate after suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer detonated a rucksack containing home-made explosives at 8.49am.

The first paramedics did not arrive at the station until 25 minutes after the explosion and firemen initially refused to enter the tunnel because of fears there could be a second bomb on the train.

Mr Henning said firemen waiting on the platform had seemed embarrassed and refused to meet his eye when he emerged soot-covered and blood-stained. He told the inquest he had later learned the 999 workers were following safety protocols.

Mr Henning spoke of his frustration as he walked past the carriage where Tanweer set off his bomb, and saw off-duty police officer Elizabeth Kenworthy desperately holding Martine Wright, who lost both her legs in the attack.

Describing the despair on Miss Kenworthy’s face, he said: ‘I had never ever seen such a forlorn look, such a desperate look. ‘I was quite calm but I could feel the anger rising in me because we had no help apart from the London Underground people at that stage.’

Mr Henning, a broker with Lloyd’s, compared the delayed response of the emergency services with the rescue teams who operated in London in the Second World War. ‘My grandfather led a rescue team in the Blitz,’ he said. ‘They didn’t wait until the bombers had left. ‘They were out, they didn’t worry about unexploded bombs. They would go in even if the building was on fire.’

Mr Henning, from Kensington, West London, was in the next carriage to the bomber’s and was showered with glass and shards of metal in the explosion. He needed medical treatment for cuts to his face and his right eye.

His physical wounds have now healed but he has undergone therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. He admitted he felt like a pariah for criticising the rescue effort.

The inquest is expected to hear further evidence on whether delays and communications failures hampered the response to the terror attacks at Aldgate, Edgware Road, King’s Cross and Tavistock Square. First aider Steven Desborough, who was a passenger on board the stricken train, described how he fought to keep severely wounded survivors alive.

He cradled injured solicitor Carrie Taylor, in his arms and tried to comfort the 24-year-old, who died shortly after paramedics arrived. Miss Taylor’s father John was in court as Mr Desborough described her death, saying: ‘There was less and less movement, less and less of her trying to call out or move around. ‘I could physically see her slipping away.’

The seven people killed in the Aldgate explosion were Lee Baisden, 34, of Romford, Essex; Benedetta Ciaccia, 30, from Norwich; Richard Ellery, 21, from Ipswich; Richard Gray, 41, from Ipswich; Anne Moffat, 48, of Old Harlow, Essex; Fiona Stevenson, 29, from Central London; and Miss Taylor, from Billericay, Essex.

The High Court inquest was told Italian-born Miss Ciaccia was two months away from her wedding day, Mr Baisden nursed his mother as she suffered from multiple sclerosis, while Miss Taylor dreamed of working for the UN.

SOURCE





Bureaucratic madness in Australia



NSW Fire Brigade officers had to sit in their station and do nothing as a house burned down just 10 minutes away because of a farcical rule.

As the house burned at Port Macquarie on September 11, the NSWFB members, who were ready to respond, were grounded by their superiors as the home was in the jurisdiction of the Rural Fire Service.

But it took the local North Shore rural brigade more than 15 minutes to arrive and another 30 minutes for support units to arrive from Lake Cathie, Pembroke and Telegraph Point. In the meantime, the fire had gutted the Riverside Drive house.

The Daily Telegraph has been told archaic laws had kept the urban firefighters inside their station.

Ashley Grady and her mum Susan lost everything in the blaze. Ashley, 19, said yesterday she could not understand why firefighters would not be sent if they were available. "Yes I have heard about what happened. It's disappointing," she said.

A NSWFB spokeswoman said "in line with agreed protocols, the RFS was notified of the call, because the house was located in an RFS fire district". But she said "additional resources can be provided by either agency upon request".

SOURCE





Australia: Muslim woman removes niqab for fraud trial -- after men ejected from court

A MUSLIM woman who sparked a national debate when she asked if she could give evidence in a Perth court wearing a niqab, has uncovered her face to give evidence in a fraud trial. Tasneem, whose last name has been suppressed by the Perth District Court, gave evidence for just 15 minutes on Monday in the trial of Anwar Sayed.

Sayed is accused of falsifying student numbers at the Muslim Ladies College of Australia in Kenwick, in Perth's south, to fraudulently obtain part of $1.125 million the school received in state and federal government grants.

The 50-year-old, from nearby Canningvale, is the director of Muslim Link Australia, which runs the school.

He allegedly knowingly signed a declaration that in the 2006/07 census year, more than 180 students were enrolled in the school when there were 80 to 100 fewer than that. The school received about $164,000 from the state government and about $961,000 from the federal government.

Tasneem, 36, has worn a niqab since the age of 17 and wanted to wear it while giving evidence in the trial.

But Judge Shauna Deane in August ruled she must remove the niqab so that the jury could read her facial expressions.

Tasneem only removes the niqab when she visits the doctor and dentist, at customs in airports and when she has her driver's licence photograph taken.

Otherwise, the only males to see her without it are her husband, children and blood relatives.

Judge Deane on Friday ruled that to make it easier for Tasneem to give evidence comfortably, men would be removed from the court. The only men allowed in the courtroom while she gave her evidence were male jurors, the judge's usher, Sayed and the lawyers.

While female journalists were allowed to stay in the court to report on Tasneem's evidence, male journalists were ejected.

A lawyer representing Network Ten and the Seven and Nine networks made an application on Friday to alter the order so that male journalists could remain in court, but the application was rejected.

Giving evidence via video link on Monday, Tasneem appeared comfortable, flanked by a security person and a support person, both of whom were female.

During her brief evidence she explained that she worked at the school as an Islamic studies teacher for two hours a day, five days a week.

Tasneem said that "from time to time" some students would go overseas on holiday or to visit family, mostly in Afghanistan, so it was possible they were enrolled at the school, but did not attend for long periods of time.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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18 October, 2010

More black people jailed in England and Wales proportionally than in US

The following article from The Guardian sees the high rate of black imprisonment as a problem. Given that ALL African populations everywhere have high rates of crime, it would be more reasonable to see it as a solution. Blacks just ARE very crime prone and no amount of Leftist outrage can hide that. They have high rates of crime in Africa itself as well as in Britain and America so blaming it on the society in which they live is ignoring the obvious.

So why is the rate of imprisonment higher in Britain than in the USA? One obvious reason is that British blacks are blacker. On some estimates, African Americans are overall 25% white genetically so their crime tendency is reduced by that. Most British blacks are wholly of African ancestry. Another factor is that American blacks tend to live in ghettoes which police tend to avoid -- so many crimes there go unsolved

The proportion of black people in prison in England and Wales is higher than in the United States, a landmark report released today by the Equality and Human Rights Commission reveals.

The commission's first triennial report into the subject, How Fair is Britain, shows that the proportion of people of African-Caribbean and African descent incarcerated here is almost seven times greater to their share of the population. In the United States, the proportion of black prisoners to population is about four times greater.

The report, which aims to set out how to measure "fairness" in Britain, says that ethnic minorities are "substantially over-represented in the custodial system". It suggests many of those jailed have "mental health issues, learning disabilities, have been in care or experienced abuse".

Experts and politicians said over-representation of black men was a result of decades of racial prejudice in the criminal justice system and an overly punitive approach to penal affairs.

"People will be and should be shocked by this data," said Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust. "We have a tendency to say we are better than the US, but we have not got prison right."

Lyon said that although there had been "numerous efforts to address racism in the prison system … we have yet to get a better relationship between justice authorities and black communities. Instead we have ended up with mistrust breeding mistrust."

Evidence of this damaged relationship can be found in the commission's report. On the streets, black people were subjected to what the report describes as an "excess" of 145,000 stop and searches in 2008. It notes that black people constitute less than 3% of the population, yet made up 15% of people stopped by police.

The commission found that five times more black people than white people per head of population in England and Wales are imprisoned. The ethnic minority prison population has doubled in a decade – from 11,332 in 1998 to 22,421 in 2008. Over a similar period, the overall number of prisoners rose by less than two thirds. The commission says that the total number of people behind bars accelerated in the last decade despite "a similar number of crimes being reported to the police as in the early 1990s … the volume of indictable offences has fallen over this time".

A quarter of the people in prison are from an ethnic minority. Muslims now make up 12% of the prison population in England and Wales.

Some on the left of the Labour party blame its policies while in power. Diane Abbott, who raised the alarm over the growing numbers of jailed black men as a backbencher, said she "very much regretted that the last Labour government swallowed [former home secretary] Michael Howard's line that 'prison works'."

"There was never a serious examination of the consequences of locking up a generation of young black men. The result is there are some prisons in the south east which are now virtually all black. Many are converting to Islam."

The problems may start at school. The commission points out that black children are three times as likely to be permanently excluded from education.

"We are reaping the effects of criminalising a community in the 1970s," says Ben Bowling, professor of criminal justice at Kings College London and a former adviser to the home affairs select committee.

"The question is how you break the cycle when young men experience custody. Three quarters simply re-offend. We have to intervene with families more effectively to stop kids going to prison. That means looking at school exclusions. You need to deal with issues like mental health and substance abuse. It is not enough to throw our hands in the air."

The policies implemented in the last decade mean incarceration levels in Britain are now among the highest in western Europe. England and Wales have an imprisonment rate of 155 per 100,000 and Scotland of 149 per 100,000 of the population. This contrasts with rates of less than 100 per 100,000 for most of Britain's neighbours.

The commission also warns of the rising numbers of women in jails. It says that the "number of women prisoners has nearly doubled since 1995 in England and Wales, and since 2000 in Scotland – currently around 5% of prisoners are women".

The Ministry of Justice said that the government would not comment on individual portions of the report.

SOURCE




Bundeskanzlerin says German multicultural society has failed

'Too little required of immigrants' says tough-talking Christian Democrat leader

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said her country’s attempts to build a post-war multicultural society have ‘utterly failed’. In a landmark speech, she broke one of Germany’s last taboos and courted anti-immigration support by claiming those from a different background failed to live happily side-by-side with native Germans.

Her comments, to the youth wing of her own Christian Democrat Union party, came amid growing resentment about immigration in Germany. There are about seven million foreign residents living in the country. Some 4.3million of these are Muslim and there are more than 3,000 mosques across Germany.

Mrs Merkel said the so-called ‘multikulti’ concept – ‘that we are now living side by side and are happy about it’ – does not work. ‘This approach has failed, utterly,’ she said just days after a poll showed a third of all Germans viewed immigrants as nothing more than welfare cheats.

Addressing fears of ‘German-ness’ being lost amid new mosques, headscarves in classrooms and Turkish ghettos in cities like Berlin, she added: ‘We feel bound to the Christian image of humanity – that is what defines us. Those who do not accept this are in the wrong place here.’

Mrs Merkel joined leading political and business leaders who have questioned immigration policies in recent months. Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin recently moved the debate centre-stage when he wrote a book that said the country’s four million Muslims were ‘dumbing down’ society and that the national Christian identity of Germans was in danger of being lost.

A poll taken after his book was published showed that one fifth of all Germans would vote for a party headed by Mr Sarrazin if he chose to form one. Against that backdrop, Mrs Merkel – with her own and her CDU conservative party ratings in the gutter – has chosen finally to speak out.

Until now, mindful of the German legacy of the Second World War and atonement for racial policies responsible for the deaths of millions, German politicians since 1945 have tended only to speak in broad positive terms of the ‘multikulti’ society.

Germany began to evolve into a country of immigration in the 1960s when Turks and others arrived to fill the labour vacuum left by the nation’s war dead.

Mrs Merkel addressed this in her speech saying: ‘At the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country. We kidded ourselves a while, we said: “They won’t stay, sometime they will be gone.” But this isn’t reality.’

She tempered her comments by insisting that Germany still welcomed immigrants – particularly the skilled ones it needs for its export-driven economy – and echoed recent comments made by the country’s president that Islam was ‘part of Germany’, like Christianity and Judaism. But Mrs Merkel also added that those who did come must adapt, and learn German ‘as quickly as possible’.

The ratcheting up in the political tone, allied as it is with the fears of the population about unemployment and loss of identity, triggered a sharp warning from Jewish leaders in Germany that democracy is under threat.

Stephan Kramer, of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said yesterday that the current debate on immigration was making people feel ‘uneasy and scared’. He also referred to a study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which showed that more than a third of those surveyed thought Germany was being ‘over-run by foreigners’ and that more than one in ten called for a ‘fuehrer’ to run the country ‘with a strong hand’.

SOURCE





The undeniable Jewish state

Is ISRAEL a Jewish state? Is the pope Catholic?

Nothing about Israel could be more self-evident than its Jewishness. As Poland is the national state of the Polish people and Japan is the national state of the Japanese people, so Israel is the national state of the Jewish people. The UN's 1947 resolution on partitioning Palestine contains no fewer than 30 references to the "Jewish state" whose creation it was authorizing; 25 years earlier, the League of Nations had been similarly straightforward in mandating "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." When Israel came into existence on May 15, 1948, its Jewish identity was the first detail reported. The New York Times's front-page story began: "The Jewish state, the world's newest sovereignty, to be known as the State of Israel, came into being in Palestine at midnight upon termination of the British mandate."

Today, half the planet's Jews live in that state, many of them refugees from anti-Semitic repression and violence elsewhere. In a world with more than 20 Arab states and 55 Muslim countries, the existence of a single small Jewish state should be unobjectionable. "Israel is a sovereign state, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people," President Barack Obama told the UN General Assembly last month. By now that should be a truism, no more controversial than calling Italy the sovereign homeland of the Italian people.

And yet to Israel's enemies, Jewish sovereignty is as intolerable today as it was in 1948, when five Arab armies invaded the newborn Jewish state, vowing "a war of extermination and a momentous massacre." Endless rounds of talks and countless invocations of the "peace process" have not changed the underlying reality of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is not about settlements or borders or Jerusalem or the rights of Palestinians. The root of the hostility is the refusal to recognize the immutable right of the Jewish people to a sovereign state in its historic homeland. Until that changes, no lasting peace is possible.

That is why the Israeli government is correct to insist that the Palestinian Authority publicly recognize Israel as the Jewish state. It is the critical litmus test. "Palestinian nationalism was based on driving all Israelis out," Edward Said told an interviewer in 1999, and the best evidence that most Palestinians are still intent on eliminating Israel is the vehemence with which even supposed "moderates" like Mahmoud Abbas will not -- or dare not -- acknowledge Israel's Jewishness as a legitimate fact of life. "What is a 'Jewish state?'" Abbas ranted on Palestinian TV. "You can call yourselves whatever you want, but I will not accept it. . . . You can call yourselves the Zionist Republic, the Hebrew, the National, the Socialist [Republic]. Call it whatever you like. I don't care."

There are those who argue that Israel cannot be both a Jewish state and a democracy. When Israel's parliament decided last week to require new non-Jewish citizens to take an oath of allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic" state, some people bristled. "The phrase itself is an oxymoron," one reader wrote to the Boston Globe. "How can a state openly favor one ethnic group over all others and declare itself to be democratic?"

But there is no conflict at all between Israel's Jewish identity and its democratic values. Indeed, the UN's 1947 partition resolution not only called for subdividing Palestine into "independent Arab and Jewish states," it explicitly required each of them to "draft a democratic constitution" and to elect a government "by universal suffrage and by secret ballot." The Jews complied. The Arabs launched a war.

Many of the world's democracies have official state religions. Think of Britain, whose monarch is the supreme governor of the Church of England; or of Greece, whose constitution singles out the Eastern Orthodox Church as the country's "prevailing religion." The linking of national character with religion is a commonplace. Israel stands out only because its religion is Judaism, not Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism.

Nor is democracy incompatible with ethnic or national distinctiveness. Ireland waives its usual citizenship requirements for applicants of Irish descent. Bulgaria's constitution grants the right to "acquire Bulgarian citizenship through a facilitated procedure" to any "person of Bulgarian origin." It is not oxymoronic to describe Ireland as "Irish and democratic" or Bulgaria as "Bulgarian and democratic." Israel's flourishing little Jewish democracy is no oxymoron either.

It is something different: a beacon of decency in a dangerous and hate-filled neighborhood. If the enemies of the Jewish state could only shed their malice, what an Eden that neighborhood could become.

SOURCE







The British welfare state is not a ‘guardian angel’

Both the critics and defenders of welfarism are blind to the detrimental impact it is having on autonomy and the human spirit

This week, by accident, I caught some of that BBC1 show Saints and Scroungers.

It features a loud little bald man exposing the ‘scroungers’ who fraudulently claim welfare benefits they are not entitled to, before praising the ‘saints’ in welfare services who help pensioners, single mums and other down-at-heel people to access benefits they are entitled to. The show has caused a stink, with some accusing it of promoting a view of people on benefits as scrounging con-artists. But I was far more alarmed by the ‘saints’ section, where welfare workers were described as ‘guardian angels’ helping to ‘turn poor people’s lives around’. I mean, if you’re going to be insulted on TV, surely it’s better to be demonised rather than super-patronised?

Saints and Scroungers, for all its awfulness, captures the essence of the welfare debate today. On one side, mainly amongst the right-wing, only the extreme problems with the benefits system – such as incapacity benefit or the way some sections of society have become reliant on handouts – are held up as problematic. And on the other side, the largely left-wing side, the welfare state is looked upon as a saintly institution, a sacred cow, against which no insult or slur can be tolerated. Neither side is ready to pose truly awkward or probing questions about benefits, and to ask whether, 70 years after it was instituted as a post-Second World War initiative, we really want to continue living in a ‘welfare society’.

Following the Conservative Party conference, many liberal defenders of the welfare state are accusing David Cameron and Co. of taking a Thatcher-style cudgel to the benefits system. They are a ‘chainsaw mob’, says one commentator, cutting everything they can: ‘They can’t contain a cocksure excitement with their brand new chainsaws. They enjoy it and it shows.’ Maybe cocksureness is in the eye of the beholder – because in truth, the most striking thing about the Tory attitude to welfare (it would be stretching things to call it a strategy) is how tentative it is. Cameron has not taken a chainsaw to the welfare system so much as a scalpel, promising to cut off little bits here and there while avoiding doing anything that might damage his party’s carefully crafted new image as Caring and Not Thatcherite.

Cameron’s welfare cuts do not spring from an overarching plan – whether of the economic or ideological variety – but rather look like exercises in spin. The announcement at the party conference that the traditionally universal child benefit would be cut for parents who earn more than £43,875 a year was clearly designed as a very public pronouncement that the Tories are no longer ‘the nasty party’ that attacks the less well-off. In a desperate bid not to be seen to be attacking the poor, the Conservatives cut from the middle classes instead, in a move that wasn’t economically essential but which was politically useful inasmuch as it sent a message about the New Tories.

Likewise, the Conservatives’ new drive against incapacity benefit – with pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith arguing that 500,000 of the people claiming that benefit could actually start work right away – shows that when it comes to welfare they are only interested in attacking easy targets. Incapacity benefit is the most extreme expression of what people refer to as ‘welfare dependency’. It is viewed by many as problematic, because it involves inciting tens of thousands of actually able-bodied people effectively to conceive of themselves as ill. In taking on this extreme form of welfarism, the Tories can once again appear to be taking action while avoiding being tarred with the Thatcher brush. Far from cocksure, their tinkering with the benefits system reveals their lack of an economic or ideological project, and their profound unwillingness to tackle, head on, the welfare cornerstone of British society.

The other side in the debate – the side opposed to Cameron’s cuts – is equally uninspired. Its supporters treat the welfare system as the great unchallengeable institution of British society. Anyone who criticises it is anti-poor and right-wing. It is important to note that this defence of welfarism, this erection of an intellectual forcefield around the postwar way of doing things, is based less on a die-hard commitment to all things welfarish than on the left’s utter inability to imagine how society might look and function without this safety net. It is their failure to understand how social relations would work without benefit payments, their lack of faith in such things as spontaneous social bonds and real community solidarity, that leads them to view welfare almost as a religious institution – literally as the ‘guardian angel’ for the otherwise unpredictable, incapable poor.

Yet from a humanist perspective – rather than from a money-saving, anti-scrounger one – there is much about welfare that can be, and ought to be, called into question. To take the extreme: incapacity benefit (IB) should definitely be rethought, not as a money-saving exercise, but as a way of challenging the welfare state’s problematic redefinition of the relationship between the state and the individual, as a way of recovering important ideals such as autonomy and solidarity. Properly instituted (ironically enough) during the Thatcher years, IB is explicitly about encouraging people to accommodate to the fact of being unemployed, to see their lack of employment not as a political problem that might be fixed through protest or reform or economic development, but as a natural state, a product of their own inability to hold down a job.

It is no coincidence that the numbers of men claiming IB rose exponentially in the 1980s and 1990s, increasing every single year (apart from 1997), from 463,000 men in 1981 to 1,276,000 in 1999 (today, an estimated two million people, including women, claim IB). This is because in the 1980s, when thousands of working-class men were being thrown out of work, they were being encouraged to see themselves as sick, as physically or mentally incapacitated rather than as being deprived of work by social and economic factors.

It was inconceivable that hundreds of thousands of working men had actually fallen gravely ill. Rather, the welfare state was cynically soaking up these people, desperately attempting to offset their potential political anger at being unemployed by inviting them to view their predicament as a health-based problem instead. This can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: told they are ‘incapable’, left to watch self-pity-inducing daytime TV, it’s not surprising that some people come to conceive of themselves as genuinely unable to work. It might be right that half-a-million of these people could start work tomorrow, but in the act of rethinking certain benefits we shouldn’t leave unchallenged the backward political and cultural trends that led to an explosion of IB in the first place.

Incapacity is only the most extreme form of such welfarism. In other areas, too, the spread of the welfare state is further harming social bonds, community solidarity, and even individual self-reliance and belief, to the extent that welfare has become increasingly therapeutic, too. And yet on one side we have a government only chipping away at aspects of welfare because it is so scared of how people will respond, and on the other side various commentators and activists are passionately defending welfarism because their lack of faith in people’s capacities is so profound, so deep-rooted, that they cannot comprehend how we would cope without permanent external assistance. We urgently need a new debate, one based neither on penny-pinching or people-pitying, but on the question of whether a social institution brought into existence 70 years ago is really the best we can expect today.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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17 October, 2010

The Democratic 'D' now stands for demagoguery

I've been in campaign meetings. Sometimes the atmosphere is grim. Your side is down and you're looking to turn things around. The pollster goes down the list of issues tested. Health care? Nope. They hate your stand on that. The economy? Thumbs down. Foreign policy? Nobody cares anymore.

Then, finally, something that works. An assistant at the polling shop throws in a question about campaign contributions by foreigners. Turns out most voters don't like them. They don't think it's an important issue, but, hey, nothing else works. So let's go with it.

This or something like it seems to have taken place at Team Obama Central sometime in the past few weeks.

Back in January, the president attacked the Supreme Court for ruling that corporations and unions have First Amendment speech rights and pointed to the possibility that foreigners might try to influence American election outcomes. Now he and his spokesmen on the campaign trail and on Sunday interview programs are charging that outfits like the Chamber of Commerce are smuggling foreign money into the campaign.

Their evidence? Well, there isn't much, as even the New York Times, Washington Post and factcheck.org agree.

The smoking gun? The Chamber of Commerce collects $100,000 in membership dues from foreigners out of a $200,000,000 operating budget and spends some of that budget on campaign ads. But Obama uberadviser David Axelrod says it's up to the chamber to prove it's innocent.

There are a couple of odd things here. One is that the 2008 Obama campaign, by deliberately not using the address verification software most enterprises use to determine it's really your credit card, took in a lot more illegal foreign money than its rivals. The Obama folks may be projecting their own sins on their opponents.

The other is that this charge of foreign money doesn't fit into any familiar political narrative. At least when the Obamaites attack evil rich people, some voters think of 19th-century caricatures of fat cats (and ignore the fact that Obama carried voters with incomes over $200,000 in 2008).

But who are these evil foreigners who are trying to inject their dirty money into American campaigns? The guys who got the jobs that were supposedly outsourced from Youngstown, Ohio? Americans who gave up their citizenship to avoid taxes? James Bond villains like Auric Goldfinger?

I seem to remember that it was candidate Barack Obama (not John McCain or Hillary Clinton) who gave a big election year speech in the Tiergarten in Berlin. It was Obama cheerleaders who told us that foreigners would love us once again if we sent George W. Bush back to Texas and installed their multicultural champion in the White House. Back in 2008, we were supposed to vote for the candidate foreigners loved. Now in 2010, we are supposed to vote against the party foreigners support.

You can be pretty sure that this is not where the Obama Democrats wanted or expected to be three weeks before the 2010 election. They operated on the assumption that history is a story of progress from no government to big government and that American voters would be grateful for little bits of economic redistribution, like the $400 tax rebate in the 2009 stimulus package.

But as Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute (where I'm a resident fellow), points out in his book "The Battle," happiness does not increase in proportion to dollars taken in. Lottery winners are happier for a few months, then go back to feeling the way they did before. What makes us happy, Brooks argues, is earned success, often in the form of money we think we've fairly earned, but also satisfaction from fulfilling family and personal responsibilities or performing community service.

Obamanomics hasn't resulted in much earned success, and Obamacare doesn't seem likely to either. The chief talking point on the latter seems to be that you can stay on your mommy and daddy's health insurance until you're 26.

Last month Barack Obama took to saying that D (Democratic) stood for Drive and R (Republican) stood for Reverse: shorthand for his notion that history inevitably and correctly moves left. Focus groups and polls showed that didn't work. So now we have the issue of supposed foreign contributors to Republican campaigns. It looks like D stands for demagoguery and desperation.

SOURCE






British police red tape revealed: reams of paperwork to look through a window

Detectives carrying out surveillance on criminals must complete a 16 page form before they can look through a window, an official report will reveal this week. It is the most basic piece of detective work – but police officers who want to watch a suspect through a window must first fill in a 16-page form to seek permission. The volume of paperwork needed to carry out this simple task has been exposed in an official report which will be published by the Government this week.

Jan Berry, hired two years ago as a Home Office “tsar” charged with combating red tape in the police service, discovered the form created by one force for officers carrying out surveillance. “One superintendent pointed out to me very poignantly that he could sign a piece of paper to authorise someone to be shot, but has to fill in a 16-page form for someone to look through a window,” she said.

Mrs Berry, former chairman of the Police Federation, will conclude that police officers spend a third of their time on pointless bureaucracy. Other examples she will cite include:

* A police officer who makes an arrest must enter the suspect’s details in at least four separate databases, or as many as eight in some forces;

* When a member of the public reports a crime, it is assessed by four different officers before an investigation even begins;

* A student constable investigating a straightforward burglary will have nine other officers supervising their work.

In an article for this newspaper today Nick Herbert, the police minister, says: “The police must be crime fighters, not form writers.”

The minister also reveals that the Coalition will introduce requirements on individual police forces to buy equipment such as cars and IT at a national level to save money.

Mrs Berry has not identified the force which requires a 16-page permission form for surveillance operations. She said the document was in two sections. In the first, to comply with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), officers must log details of the investigation, justify the need for surveillance and explain why they cannot pursue an alternative course of action.

In the second, the “operational order”, they must record how many colleagues will be joining the operation, the ranks of all the participants, and how they will be deployed. “This could just involve simple surveillance such as going to look whether a suspect is at home, by peeking through the glass,” she said. “Clearly, I think this is unnecessary. “We can’t have a Big Brother policing with unregulated surveillance, but at the same time most members of the public will think that level of bureaucracy is totally ludicrous.”

Other police forces impose similar volumes of paperwork on officers taking part in surveillance operations, but ask officers to complete two separate documents - a RIPA form of around seven pages, and an operational order of eight to 10 pages.

All of the paperwork must be approved by a superintendent. Failure to complete it properly could lead to a prosecution collapsing in court when defence lawyers claim surveillance was carried out without authorisation.

Mrs Berry, a retired police inspector, will warn in her report that British policing sometimes gives “greater attention to recording than investigation”, and wasteful practices still exist despite being first identified more than a decade ago.

She said: “We have whole armies of people filling in spreadsheets trying to prove their force meets this or that different standard. “There is one third of policing that we could cut out. I suggest an estimate that one third of work is added by duplication, over-engineering and risk assessments at every level of policing. “Over the last 10 years there have been so many initiatives to cut red tape but if we are honest some of the barriers that were there 10 years ago are still there now.”

Further examples of red tape cited by Mrs Berry include:

* An offender accused of a simple shoplifting offence can be held in custody for up to 14 hours in one police force area, because the arresting officer has to hand the case over to a specific team rather than handle the case themselves;

* About 80 per cent of guidance given to officers on how to handle different crimes is duplicated;

* In major crime investigations and other activities known as “protective services”, forces have to answer 1,099 questions to prove they are meeting standards;

* Officers spend 30 to 45 minutes a day ploughing through internal emails because bureaucrats send communications to everyone in the force;

* Supervisors can spent two to three hours per shift preparing for daily intelligence meetings.

The report will conclude that a prime problem is that no single person is responsible for the police nationally, or for overall control of the criminal justice system. It will recommend creating a job with “clout” to have that wide oversight, claiming that otherwise reforms will never happen.

Mrs Berry, who was hired as “independent reducing-bureaucracy advocate” by then-home secretary Jacqui Smith in 2008, said: “In the current economic climate we cannot afford for this to get worse.

“Forces are going to have their budgets cut and they are going to have to look at what roles people are playing. “At the moment, when someone reports a crime, one member of staff receives the call, it goes to someone else for assessment, then to someone else for another assessment, then someone will decide if it should be a priority and another person will put together an investigation plan. This must be simplified. “Performance culture is huge and, while the government has rightly removed a lot of the targets, at a local level targets are alive and well.”

Other main recommendations include allowing officers to use common sense, reducing the use of “gatekeepers” who are nominated to handle certain types of crime or processes, and reviewing structures and departments to streamline investigations.

Simon Reed, vice-chairman of the Police Federation, which represents front line officers, said: “There will be fewer police as a result of cuts, and we must have a huge reduction in bureaucracy to help make up the shortfall.”

SOURCE







The British police must have power to stop and search ethnic groups

By Brian Paddick (Paddick was formerly Deputy Assistant Commissioner in London's Metropolitan Police Service)

Suppose two Asian gangs from different parts of the country have agreed over the internet to settle their differences in a street fight. Armed with knives and baseball bats, they make their way to your high street only to find that the police have organised a blanket ‘stop and search’ operation in order to disarm them.

So why are the officers telling white passers-by to open their bags and empty their pockets? Such a state of affairs might seem bizarre, but it is all too common. Police officers fear they will be accused of discrimination if they target people on the basis of their appearance, a form of political correctness which can only damage their ability to uphold the law.

Why, then, has there been such an outcry at Government proposals to bring back a bit of common sense and allow officers to stop some suspects rather than others? It has been claimed that the proposals – draft guidance from the Home Office – are a return to the ‘sus laws’. They are setting the clock back, it is said, and will allow the police to directly discriminate on grounds of race.

I am a firm believer in civil liberties and a great admirer of the Liberty campaign group. However, as a former police officer, I believe such criticisms are entirely misguided, in partic­ular the claim that the proposals amount to a return of ‘sus’.

‘Sus’ – or being a suspected person loitering with intent to commit an indictable offence – is discredited legislation from 1824 that has long since been repealed. It was a criminal offence, not a power to stop and search, and it was at the heart of poor relations between the police and black people in Britain for good reason.

The usual evidence given in court in a ‘sus’ case was no more impressive than ‘three car door handles, your worship’. If a police officer saw – or said they saw – a suspect looking for an unlocked car door in order to steal, this would be sufficient to prove they were up to no good.

Regrettably, some police officers would invent evidence in order to secure a conviction. In 1978 I was at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court when one of my colleagues put a young black man in the dock. The accused man pleaded guilty to ‘sus’. Yet when I spoke to the arresting officer he told me in hushed tones that the ‘guilty’ man had done nothing. ‘He just ran away when we came around the corner and when we caught him we said he could either have an attempted burglary or ‘sus’ and he went for ‘sus’.’

As there was no need for any corroborative evidence, it was a law open to abuse, which is why it has been consigned to the legislative dustbin.

These new Home Office guidelines are nothing to do with ‘sus’ and every­thing to do with practical policing. Of course it is wrong to pick on black people simply because an officer might associate being black with criminality.

That is a matter of straight­forward prejudice. The overwhelming majority of black people are law-abiding. It is equally wrong for the police to target Muslims in the crude and misguided belief that Muslims are likely to be terrorists.

What does a Muslim look like, anyway? The ‘shoe bomber’, Richard Reid, was born in the London suburb of Bromley to a white British mother and a Caribbean father. He looked neither Middle Eastern nor South Asian. So, yes, I have sympathy for the civil libertarians. But in this case they are wrong, as a matter of principle and of detail.

The new Home Office guidance suggests no more than a modest rewording of Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, a piece of legislation originally aimed at gangs of rival football supporters but which is now used to counter violence of all sorts.

Before Section 60 can be used, a senior police officer must reasonably believe that there is going to be serious violence or that people are carrying weapons. Only then are the police authorised to stop and search anyone. The powers come with strong safeguards. They can be used only within a specific area and for only a limited time, initially no longer than 24 hours.

When I was the police ­commander in Wimbledon, South London, in the late Nineties, we sometimes received intell­igence that rival Asian gangs from different parts of London were preparing to fight on the streets.

If we had specific information about where and when the fight was going to take place, we could use Section 60 to prevent it. The new Home Office guidance is saying no more than this: that if the police believe the fight will take place between two Asian gangs, it makes sense to stop and search Asian people.

In 1999, the white supremacist and nail-bomber David Copeland was targeting busy shopping areas at weekends. In the absence of anti-terrorism legislation at that time, we used Section 60 to try to catch him. Officers were given authority to stop and search and were told that we were looking for a white man carrying a sports holdall. Copeland had been caught on poor-quality CCTV but we could still make out his ethnic origin, if not his identity.

Police at that time did not racially stereotype all white people as terrorists. They did, however, target their stop and search on a particular ethnic group and in this case the people of interest happened to be white. Any reasonable person can see the merits of the police having such powers.

The proposed new guidelines state that officers should take care not to discriminate, but say: ‘There may be circumstances...where it is appropriate for officers to take account of an individual’s ethnic origin in selecting persons and vehicles to be stopped in response to a specific threat or incident...’

Bear in mind, too, that some potential crimes, such as a fight between neo-Nazis, would probably exclude people from min­ority ethnic backgrounds from suspicion. Far from jeopardising race relations, such a commonsense approach could actually promote them.

If serious violence can be prevented, then police officers must be empowered to conduct blanket stop-and-search operations which target the most likely individuals. Yes, it is a draconian power; yes, its use should be limited. But there are circumstances where such powers are absolutely necessary.

SOURCE






'You're not on welfare so we can't help': What a British job centre told mother trying to return to work

A mother-of-two claims a job centre told her they couldn't help her find work - because she didn't want to claim benefits. Lynne Dawson, 32, had taken a career break to raise her two children while engineer husband Anthony brought in an income. But now daughters Deanna, six, and Keira, three, are older she felt she should find work as well as help the family.

Intending to work part-time from home Mrs Dawson said she was having trouble finding the right job and decided to seek help at her local job centre.

Shockingly despite contacting the her local centre in Derby Lynne claims she was told without claiming benefits she couldn't get an interview. She even tried a different branch and another member of staff but was still turned down.

The former medical inspector, from Chaddesden, Derbys, said: 'There is a recession on and a lot of people out of work. 'It's quite shocking that you have to sponge off the state to qualify for some personal advice in getting back into work. 'I couldn't believe it. It was the first question they asked me: 'Are you claiming any benefits?'.

'I don't want to claim benefits. I'd rather do things on my own. All I wanted was some advice on putting a CV together and finding work by sitting down and talking with someone. But they wouldn't do it.

'I wanted a part-time position I could do from home and I started to check job websites but it was quite confusing. 'So I decided to go and ask the job centre, to get some help putting a CV together, I haven't done one for years.'

Taxpayer's watchdog the Taxpayer's Alliance branded the job centres actions as outrageous. A spokesman said: 'This is a total outrage and just goes to show how topsy turvy our welfare system has become. 'Someone willing and able like Mrs Dawson should be encouraged into work, not on to benefits. 'Her commitment to finding work is admirable but it's a complete disgrace that she's being denied help.

'Real reform is desperately needed if we're to get people back into employment and break open the benefit trap.'

Job centres offer advice in getting back to work and compiling a CV via the Directgov website but Lynne said she was not made aware of this when speaking to staff. A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said: 'We are sorry that this information was not offered to the lady who approached us for help.

'Jobcentre Plus prioritises its services by offering support mainly to people who receive welfare benefits and to those who have experienced long-term problems in getting back into employment.

'Our online and telephone services are convenient to use and provide extensive advice. The Directgov website, available to anyone, offers help and information about looking for work as well as providing access to the UK's largest jobs database.'

Conservative Minister for Employment Chris Grayling said the coalition Government had no plans to change Jobcentre rules. However, he did highlight Government proposals to set up 'work clubs'. He said: 'We are setting out this week radical plans for welfare reform to break the culture of welfare dependency which is present in too many communities around the country, but we are also stepping up the support to newer job seekers through job centre Plus and work clubs.'

George Cowcher, chief executive of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce, said it seemed 'counter-productive' to turn somebody away who wanted to find employment. He said: 'Nobody who is actively seeking work should be denied such help and support.'

SOURCE

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

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

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

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16 October, 2010

Blind Minority Support for Democrats is Racist

Gabriel Garnica

As a proud Latino professional and educator, I have always found the automatic, large minority support for the Democratic Party nauseating. After all, we have been told over and over that bias has its roots in assumptions, preconceptions, and stagnated beliefs.

History shows that, despite some exceptions, for the most part, Democratic candidates can expect large minority support thanks to a constellation of myths perpetuated by the liberal media and liberals themselves. These myths include the belief that Democrats care more about minorities’ needs than keeping minorities in their hip pocket when voting time comes. To the contrary, it has become fairly obvious that Democrats seek to perpetuate a dependent minority base and have no interest in helping that base become self-sufficient, independent, or successful. It is quite clear that Democrats have no interest in teaching anyone to fish but, rather, have every intention to keep providing fish so as to foster gratitude, dependence, and blind loyalty.

Imagine the outcry if a bumbling white leader had over 90% white support despite a downward spiral of ineptitude. The only thing we would hear is how racist such blind, obviously race-based, support would be. Turn the tables, have a Democratic side that not only enjoys widespread African-American support, but now increasingly seeks to spread its voting monopoly deeply into the Hispanic community, and one witnesses the usual hypocrisy so rampant on the Left and among its pet media.

Polls among African-Americans reveal an equally troubling dynamic among blacks regarding Obama. It seems that half of African-Americans are so steeped in delusional denial as to declare, with a straight face, that this Administration is doing well. While this blind loyalty in the face of contradictory evidence is to be expected, it does not speak well for the objectivity of those involved. If that blind allegiance is tragic, the justification of the other half of this voting base is downright pathetic. It seems that this other half does not even consider the issue of this Administration’s competence relevant, but is content that an African-American has even been elected and seeks to keep that dream alive regardless of the fallout.

Again, imagine the outcry if polls showed that a vast majority of whites mainly sought to keep the White House white. In fact, liberals wail on and on about how many whites blindly vote for white candidates simply to keep minorities out of power. Turn the tables and have most blacks still supporting a black leader despite considerable evidence of incompetence and these liberals have no problem with the situation.

The crux of racism is blindly supporting a person, cause or agenda based on racial preferences in the midst of contrary evidence. While the African-American community should certainly be proud of the fact that one of its own has in fact reached the top and use this fact as a motivation to greater success, it is certainly selling itself short by failing to rise above subjective, biased and, most destructively, oblivious support simply because of the color of a leader’s skin. The African-American and, for that matter, Hispanic and all other minority communities, deserve a lot more than such a superficial, biased, and utterly pathetic standard for its support.

The deadly combination of crafty liberal PR and pervasive liberal media hype and myth has perpetuated and almost institutionalized the lie that conservatives do not care about minorities and liberals spend every waking moment working for them. History, and the facts, however, tell a far different story to those with enough self-respect and intelligence to substantiate and validate their political support and loyalty through careful research and self-information.

Between Nancy Pelosi’s ringing endorsement of welfare as a social good and Obama’s stimulus people sending checks to the deceased and incarcerated, it has become painfully clear that the only political side even remotely interested in teaching people to fish is the conservative side. Liberals, on the other hand, seem only too content to continue patronizing dependence and selling fish at the same kind of discount that they believe America is worth. Perhaps sending this money to those now dead or in jail is simply another Democratic attempt to capture more voters, one way or the other.

SOURCE






Crooked British Muslim cop is made to pay just £750 of £64,500 trial costs... despite his THREE homes

Disgraced police chief Ali Dizaei was at the centre of a new storm last night after it emerged he has been forced to pay just £750 towards the prosecution costs of his corruption trial.

The Crown Prosecution Service had asked that three-times married Dizaei be ordered to pay their £64,500 bill for the four-week hearing earlier this year. But despite owning three homes worth a total of £1million, playboy Dizaei – who had expensive tastes in women, cars and clothes – said he was virtually penniless and able to pay only a tiny amount. After considering his case, Southwark Crown Court ordered that he pay £750 plus VAT towards the prosecution costs.

Yet the Mail can reveal that Dizaei owns homes in Acton and Chiswick in West London, and co-owns a property in Henley-on-Thames with his former wife Natalie.

Before his corruption conviction, Dizaei won a substantial five-figure libel payout from a Sunday newspaper. It is not known where the money went.

The decision to make the former Met Commander pay so little has staggered his former colleagues in the Metropolitan Police. One said: ‘A lot of people find it very hard to believe he is only worth £750. Many people will think he’s played the system and won.’

According to publicly available Land Registry documents, each of Dizaei’s homes is mortgaged. It is not known how much equity is in each.

Dizaei, 47, was jailed for four years in February for abusing his police position to bully a young businessman. He assaulted and falsely arrested Iraqi Waad al-Baghdadi, 24, after the businessman asked for £600 he was owed for creating a website showcasing Dizaei’s career.

He was sacked from his £90,000-a-year job at Scotland Yard in March but, despite his dismissal, will still be able to claim at least a third of his gold-plated police pension in the future.

A former president of the militant National Black Police Association, he has endured a torrid time since being jailed, including an attack in which he was knocked out and had a slop bucket poured over him.

The Iranian-born former officer, who spent thousands of pounds on a hair transplant, has also been goaded about the colour of his hair after it turned grey without lashings of black dye. Dizaei is now in Leyhill open prison in Gloucestershire.

In August, it emerged Dizaei plans to sue the prison service for failing to protect him from a brawl in which he allegedly attacked another cellmate at a previous jail in South Wales. He is demanding damages from prison authorities – even though he is being investigated by police for allegedly assaulting another inmate.

Southwark Court confirmed that Dizaei has been ordered to pay just £750 plus VAT for the prosecution costs of his trial. The CPS refused to comment.

SOURCE





Nutty British prisons boss says inmates should have choice of FIVE dishes for dinner

Prisoners must be given a choice of at least five different dishes for dinner, it emerged last night. Under new rules – quickly dubbed ‘Porridge à la Carte’ – inmates will be presented with a menu from which to select their desired meal from the five on offer.

Governors must change the menu regularly to ensure the same options do not appear more than once a month. The order dictating the changes even insists that prisoners are ‘consulted’ about the quality of meals served. Prisons minister Crispin Blunt, who previously gave the go-ahead for Halloween and Christmas parties for inmates, is responsible for prisoner food rules.

Critics described the regulations as ‘lunacy’. The rules, issued by the Ministry of Justice and sent to every jail in England and Wales, came into force on October 1 but were only published yesterday.

Diktats include that drug addicts trying to get clean should be given hot chocolate because it is ‘comforting’. New inmates must be given an arrival pack containing tea and coffee, sweets and cigarettes. And late arrivals – such as newly-sentenced prisoners – must be given a hot meal even if they arrive at the prison after all the other inmates have eaten.

Fiona McEvoy, campaign manager at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: ‘While many ordinary, law-abiding taxpayers struggle for cash and brace themselves for cuts in services, these convicts are getting five-star treatment on the public purse. ‘The amount of effort and planning going into these menus is just insulting – it seems criminals are being fed better than patients, school children and the elderly in many cases. ‘No one would deny inmates a decent meal, but this is just ridiculous.’

Tory MP Douglas Carswell added: ‘Surely we should be giving individual prison governors control over meals and letting them see what works and what gets results? ‘Why are we trying to micro-manage the prison service from the centre, right down to the amount of gravy and type of vegetables prisoners have for their meals? It’s lunacy.’

The edict follows a bizarre speech by Mr Blunt last month in which he said inmates should be served perfectly-sized and shaped apples to prevent ‘fruit riots’. He told the House of Commons that ‘undersize’ fruit handed out at jail canteens could create ‘issues of order and control’.

‘It is worth remembering that discontent about the quality of food, changes to menus and failure to deliver what was previously promised have been known to be the catalyst for serious disturbances,’ he said.

‘An undersize apple handed out at the servery will create issues of order and control, so we use suppliers that are sensitive to that need and that use their sourcing ability to maintain consistency from their supply base.’

Mr Blunt provoked outrage within weeks of his appointment by lifting a ban on taxpayer-funded prisoner parties and comedy workshops for high security inmates. The MP for Reigate – who is the uncle of actress Emily Blunt – was swiftly slapped down by Downing Street, and the decision reversed the following day. He was slapped down again after he said criminals could get their jail sentences slashed if they said sorry.

And there was further outrage when it emerged that newly-released prisoners are being offered free mobile phones in a taxpayer-funded ‘welcome pack’ when they arrive at bail hostels.

The ‘Catering – Meals for Prisoners’ section in Prison Service Instruction number 44/2010 states: ‘A multi-choice minimum five choices, pre-select menu including a minimum of one substantial hot meal choice per day will be provided for the lunch time or evening meal.’ Food must meet the ‘cultural, nutritional and diversity needs’ of inmates, the order states.

It adds: ‘The menu provides information which enables prisoners to make decisions about their menu choice. The menu cycle will be for a minimum of four weeks. ‘Prisoners are consulted about and can make comments on the catering provision.’ Officials said each menu would include a hot meal, a cold meal, a vegetarian option and one that is free of dairy products.

Every menu must also include a halal meal that complies with the Islamic code on how animals should be slaughtered.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘At a time when the Government is looking for ways to save money it’s quite extraordinary that the only people who look like they are going to be better off are prisoners. As far as I’m concerned it’s absolutely unacceptable and I think the public will be outraged.’

Although many prisons already offer a wide choice at mealtimes, it is thought to be the first time the five choices have been set in stone by ministers.

A Prison Service spokesman said: ‘The choice of meals that are available to prisoners reflect both religious and medical requirements, including halal, dairy free and vegetarian options. In practice this means a number of prisoners only have one choice.’

SOURCE










British school trips to be freed from health and safety red tape as Lord Young promises to roll back compensation culture

Red tape surrounding school trips is to be slashed as part of a Government drive to inject ‘common sense’ into Britain’s health and safety laws. Former Cabinet minister Lord Young said the regulation surrounding school trips was now so onerous that many teachers no longer bothered to organise them – leading millions of children to miss out on a vital part of their education.

Launching a Government report on health and safety laws today Lord Young criticised the ‘enormous bureaucracy’ currently surrounding school trips. He said ministers would cut back the 12-page risk assessment that currently has to be completed by teachers for each trip. Parents will also be able to sign a single consent form which covers a child’s entire time at the school, to prevent the wasteful practice of seeking consent for every visit.

Lord Young, who was appointed by David Cameron to roll back Britain’s compensation culture, said: ‘The simple truth is that filling in a form doesn’t make a trip more safe. ‘Children are potentially missing out on vital education because schools just do not have the time and resource to carry out the process. ‘If they do, they are too concerned about the threat of legal action should an accident happen.’

The report also calls for risk assessments of children’s play areas to consider the benefits of giving youngsters somewhere to play rather than focusing solely on the potential risks.

Lord Young said health and safety laws originally designed for dangerous industries were now being applied to a range of jobs and everyday activities that are ‘non-hazardous’.

He also hit out at no-win, no-fee lawyers for fuelling the compensation culture, saying: ‘I started out as a lawyer and I am frankly ashamed of some of the things that I have seen.’ The new report calls for a crackdown on adverts encouraging people to launch a compensation claim for even the most trivial accident.

Lord Young said the Government would ban the practice of law firms and claims handlers offering people up to £500 up front in return for lodging a compensation claim. Lord Young said the growth of the compensation culture led to higher insurance premiums for millions of businesses and individuals, and persuaded many organisations to adopt an unnecessarily risk-averse approach.

He said the insurance industry was also ‘part of the problem’. He added: ‘Businesses now operate their health and safety policies in a climate of fear. The advent of 'no win, no fee' claims and the all-pervasive advertising by claims management companies have significantly added to the belief that there is a nationwide compensation culture.’

Two years ago teachers at the John F. Kennedy Primary School in Washington, Tyne and Wear, scrapped the sports day sack race fearing children will fall over

The report ‘Common Sense, Common Safety’, which was accepted in its entirety by the Government, also calls for the introduction in law of a ‘Good Samaritan clause’ to make it clear that volunteers cannot be sued unless they have clearly acted recklessly or maliciously.

Lord Young said the move would prevent a repeat of the farce last winter when people were warned they could be sued for clearing the snow in front of their home if someone then slipped on the pavement.

A separate legislative move will make it clear that members of the emergency services will not risk prosecution on health and safety grounds in circumstances where they have acted heroically – a move immediately welcomed by the Association of Chief Police Officers.

The Prime Minister said he hoped Lord Young’s report would prove to be a ‘turning point’ which would ‘help stop the creep of unnecessary health and safety culture that we have’.

Other changes include requiring killjoy councils that want to ban community events such as pancake races to put their reasons in writing. Organisers will be able to challenge any ruling and councils could be fined if they are found to have acted wrongly.

A new fixed-cost system for resolving compensation in road traffic accidents will be extended to cover straightforward personal injury claims.

Simpler guidance on health and safety will be published for offices and other low-risk workplaces, and employers will not have to conduct a full health and safety assessment for staff who work from home.

Lord Young insisted that his reforms, which will be rolled out over the next 18 months, would have no impact on important health and safety laws in hazardous workplaces.

But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber described the report as a ‘grave disappointment’ which could throw safety improvements into reverse. Mr Barber said: ‘The report contains not a single proposal that will reduce the high levels of workplace death, injuries and illness.’

SOURCE

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

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

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

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15 October, 2010

A politically correct Nobel prize in economics?

Comment below by German economist Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich

This year’s Nobel prizes started promisingly enough: The literature prize was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa, who made the defence of individual liberty the theme of his work. Then the peace prize went to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiabao, who has had to pay a high personal price for his decades-long fight for political freedom in the one-party state.

The Nobel Prize in economics, however, left me somewhat puzzled. To be sure, the recipients Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen, and Christopher Pissarides are all highly respected economists. Their contributions to labour market theory have become part of textbook economics. In this sense, the prize is well deserved.

Having said that, awarding the prize to the trio also looks a bit like a safe choice. If the Nobel committee had wanted to set an exclamation mark with their decision, they could have honoured branches of economics they had hitherto neglected. For example, research into entrepreneurship is long overdue in terms of Nobel recognition, and someone like Israel M. Kirzner would have been a worthy recipient. No one has more elegantly formulated why and how entrepreneurs are the key figures in driving the competitive market economy and thus economic growth.

In another sense, too, the choice of the three labour market specialists is hardly revolutionary. Though their models are elegant, what they are actually saying is very much common sense. For example, their model shows that ‘more generous unemployment benefits give rise to higher unemployment and longer search times,’ the Nobel committee inform us in their press release. But does it surprise anyone that a life on benefits makes it less urgent to look for a job?

Even stranger, the Nobel laureates are happy to claim responsibility for labour market reforms that are widely regarded as failed. Pissarides says the ‘New Deal for Young People,’ a British government initiative aimed at getting 18- to 24-year-olds back on the job market after long spells of unemployment, ‘is very much based on our work.’ But, as a report by former British welfare reform minister Frank Field for London-based think tank Reform shows, the program was costly without actually bringing young jobseekers back into work. ‘The results of the New Deal for Young People have however been modest, to put it mildly,’ Field concluded.

To round off the oddities about this year’s prize, one of the laureates, Peter Diamond, had been nominated by President Obama for a seat on the board of the Federal Reserve. His nomination has been blocked, however, because Republican opponents have doubts about his qualifications for the job.

It seems the main purpose of this year’s prize is to underline that markets often do not work, in this case because of search costs in labour markets. But that such costs exist is hardly disputed.

It would have been more appropriate if the Nobel committee had honoured an economist who had made contributions to showing how markets work. Like Liu Xiabao, who was widely pipped to win the Nobel last year, Israel M. Kirzner may have to wait one more year.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 15 October. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.





As career criminals with 100 convictions are spared jail in Britain, MPs ask... What DOES get you locked up?

Thousands of career criminals are being spared jail despite having amassed at least 50 convictions. Almost 2,700 were handed a community sentence after being found guilty more than 50 times before. Incredibly, 315 offenders even received a non-custodial punishment after 100 or more previous offences.

The figures, seen by the Mail, also show more than 13,000 on at least their 30th offence received a community penalty – widely derided as ‘soft’ by critics. It means offenders who are convicted of 30 or more crimes are 1,000 times more likely to be given a community sentence or a fine than end up in prison.

MPs and experts said the alarming revelations showed why Kenneth Clarke should be imprisoning more convicts – not fewer. Criminologist Dr David Green, director of the Civitas think-tank, said even more prolific offenders could escape jail in future. ‘It’s all very well giving out community sentences for minor offences – but if you’re on your 101st conviction, then it’s evidence of being a career criminal,’ he added. ‘I would have thought a long custodial sentence would be appropriate for these people, who will have been committing crimes more or less every day for all their adult life. If they do allow career criminals to roam the streets, we can safely say there will be a rise in crime.’

Tory backbencher Philip Davies said: ‘These statistics show what a joke the criminal justice system has become. You have to work very hard to get into prison nowadays. ‘No wonder people have lost faith in the criminal justice system when we see people carrying out literally hundreds of crimes and getting off time and time again.’

But the Justice Secretary yesterday remained defiant over his plans to hand out community punishments rather than short jail terms. He said: ‘Simply banging up more and more people for longer without actively seeking to change them is not going to protect the public. I do not think prison is or should be a numbers game’.

The re-offending figures, which are for 2008, were revealed last week by Justice Minister Crispin Blunt following a parliamentary question. They show that the problem of repeat offending has been getting worse. In 2006, a total of 179 criminals were spared jail after 100 convictions – not much more than half of the 315 figure in 2008. And whereas in 2002 a total of 1,200 had 50 or more convictions, that had soared to 2,670 in 2008.

Some of the figures were published earlier this year, buried in an annex of a document of sentencing statistics. The Ministry of Justice document reveals that repeat offending is getting worse. The proportion of sentences given to offenders with 15 or more previous convictions or cautions has risen from 17 per cent in 2000 to 28 per cent in 2008.

Graham Jones, the Labour MP who asked the question, said: ‘These figures seem to show that the “prison doesn’t work” idea put forward by the Conservatives is wrong.’

Despite how hard it has become to earn a custodial sentence, Mr Clarke is still insisting there are too many convicts sent to jail for six months or less. He wants to replace these sentences – given to around 50,000 offenders each year – with ‘tougher community’ penalties.

Yesterday, he said: ‘The army of short term prisoners we have at the moment, who have a particularly bad record of re-offending within six months of being released, is too big and we’ve got to find some sensible community sentences.’

Governors say it will slash jail numbers by 7,000 at any one time – with some prisons closing because there are too few inmates.

The vast majority of those convicted of a range of offences are have been convicted of the same crime before.

Mr Clarke provoked anger among the Tory grassroots earlier this year by declaring that prison ‘doesn’t work’ – ripping up almost 20 years of party policy. But he has stuck doggedly to the position that short-jail sentences are ‘ineffective’ and ‘absurd’. He says that – with 60 per cent of jailed inmates re-offending on release – the system must be changed.

The government is carrying out a sentencing review, which is due to report back within weeks. It will rule out scrapping short sentences altogether. But community punishments are likely to be toughened by making offenders wear an electronic tag. Officials hope this will persuade magistrates to use the punishment instead of jail.

In yesterday’s speech to the Prison Governors Association, Mr Clarke reiterated his plan to encourage inmates to work a 40-hour week, in return for the minimum wage. He also said he wanted to modern versions of Victorian prisons with a new focus on hard work and discipline.

He also said he wanted an ‘intensive effort to start developing drug-free wings’ in prisons, getting inmates off drugs altogether, and wanted regimes which prepared prisoners for an ‘ordinary honest life outside’.

Only this week, we heard that judges and magistrates are being told to send fewer violent thugs to prison. Now those found guilty of actual, or even grievous, bodily harm will not be going to prison at all, particularly if they are young or express remorse.

Makes you wonder who we’ll be letting off next? Rapists? Murderers?

Ken Clarke, our new Justice Secretary, may have come to the highly convenient, money-saving conclusion that prison sentences do not reduce crime – which I don’t believe – but I’m more inclined to side with former Home Secretary Michael Howard and his famous ‘prison works’ speech.

It addressed the problems of criminals and criminality in a way that the latest milksop, so-called ‘community payback’, never will. A couple of weeks loafing around in high-visibility jackets? Oh yes, I’m quite sure that will get hardened criminals back on the straight and narrow, Mr Clarke.

At the grassroots level, the judicial system is a currently a mess, where something as serious as shoplifting can earn you an £80 fixed penalty fine, while dropping a cigarette butt can land you with a £1,000 fine.

It’s a world where the police keep telling us that crime is falling but only, I’m convinced, because they’re letting repeat young offenders off with warning after warning, caution after caution.

Sometimes I wonder why they don’t just raise the age of criminal responsibility to 20 and solve the whole problem of youth crime overnight.

More HERE





Save us from red tape, beg British local councils: Labour issued 74,000 pages of rules in a decade

Local government bureaucrats have had to follow 74,000 pages of new rules and instructions handed down by Whitehall over the past decade, council chiefs complained yesterday. The forest of red tape was a product of 4,000 different laws and circulars covering everything from parish council election advice to carbon reduction targets.

The direct cost to taxpayers of demands sent down by ministers to town halls amounts to £900 million a year and the overall losses could be as high as £2.5 billion annually, the Local Government Association said. It demanded simplification of the rules that govern local councils and an end to central government guidelines that give detailed instructions on how town halls should carry out their duties.

According to a report published by the umbrella body for local councils, the burden has amounted to 40 pages of regulation for every day that Parliament has been sitting since 2000. The rules include 2,000 pages of planning guidance issued by John Prescott and other Labour ministers to try to impose national policies on housebuilding, development in green fields, and traveller sites.

There were 1,300 pages sent out last year in one manual from the Department of Work and Pensions instructing local officials how to pay out Housing Benefit.

And targets issued by the Communities Department in 2008 required town halls to increase the number of new businesses started in their area, cut the re-offending rates of local criminals, and get more people to stop smoking.

Even since May and the arrival of the Coalition government, councils have been given 1,355 pages of rules thanks to 67 new laws which have come into effect.

The page count produced a plea for mercy from LGA chairman Baroness Margaret Eaton. She said: ‘An avalanche of paperwork has descended on town halls across the country in the past decade. ‘There is no justification for the amount of form-filling, data returns, reviews and micromanagement being foisted on local government.

Red tape of this kind wastes valuable time and resources which councils need to spend delivering services.’

The Association appealed for instructions to councils on how to carry out their legal duties to be scrapped, for consolidation of local government laws into a simplified codebook, and for an end to demands for statistics and information on whether targets have been reached.

Lady Eaton said: ‘Councils are well aware of their responsiblities towards their residents. What they need are the freedoms which will allow them to make the money go further and do more for everyone.’

Ministers yesterday announced one cutback on red-tape with the withdrawal of 4,700 Whitehall targets set under the regulations on ‘Local Area Agreements’.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles also said central government demands for information would be simplified. He said: ‘National targets tend to mean that councils are constantly working on things which matter to Whitehall, regardless of what local residents think. I’d much rather councils were tackling local issues.

The money being spent on form fillers and bean counters could be far better spent helping elderly people to stay in their homes.’

SOURCE






'The Aim Is to Make Israel a Pariah'

Rupert Murdoch

Last night, Rupert Murdoch gave an extraordinary speech at an Anti-Defamation League dinner in which he revealed, yet again, that he is a true and selfless friend of the Jewish people and of Israel. Here is the text:

You [the ADL] were founded a century ago against the backdrop of something we cannot imagine in America today: the conviction and then lynching of an innocent Jew. In the century since then, you have fought anti-Semitism wherever you have found it. You have championed equal treatment for all races and creeds. And you have held America to her founding promise. So successful have you been, a few years ago some people were beginning to say, “maybe we don’t need an ADL anymore.” That is a much harder argument to make these days. Now, there’s not a single person in this room who needs a lecture on the evil of anti-Semitism. My own perspective is simple: We live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews. For the first decades after Israel’s founding, this war was conventional in nature. The goal was straightforward: to use military force to overrun Israel. Well before the Berlin Wall came down, that approach had clearly failed.

Then came phase two: terrorism. Terrorists targeted Israelis both home and abroad – from the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich to the second intifada. The terrorists continue to target Jews across the world. But they have not succeeded in bringing down the Israeli government – and they have not weakened Israeli resolve.

Now the war has entered a new phase. This is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimizing it. The battleground is everywhere: the media … multinational organizations … NGOs. In this war, the aim is to make Israel a pariah.

The result is the curious situation we have today: Israel becomes increasingly ostracized, while Iran – a nation that has made no secret of wishing Israel’s destruction – pursues nuclear weapons loudly, proudly, and without apparent fear of rebuke.

For me, this ongoing war is a fairly obvious fact of life. Every day, the citizens of the Jewish homeland defend themselves against armies of terrorists whose maps spell out the goal they have in mind: a Middle East without Israel. In Europe, Jewish populations increasingly find themselves targeted by people who share that goal. And in the United States, I fear that our foreign policy sometimes emboldens these extremists.

Tonight I’d like to speak about two things that worry me most. First is the disturbing new home that anti-Semitism has found in polite society – especially in Europe. Second is how violence and extremism are encouraged when the world sees Israel’s greatest ally distancing herself from the Jewish state.

When Americans think of anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century. Today it seems that the most virulent strains come from the left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel.

Back in 2002 the president of Harvard, Larry Summers, put it this way: “Where anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists, profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.”

Mr. Summers was speaking mostly about our university campuses. Like me, however, he was also struck by alarming developments in Europe. Far from being dismissed out of hand, anti-Semitism today enjoys support at both the highest and lowest reaches of European society – from its most elite politicians to its largely Muslim ghettoes. European Jews find themselves caught in this pincer.

We saw a recent outbreak when a European Commissioner trade minister declared that peace in the Middle East is impossible because of the Jewish lobby in America. Here’s how he put it: “There is indeed a belief—it’s difficult to describe it otherwise—among most Jews that they are right. And it’s not so much whether these are religious Jews or not. Lay Jews also share the same belief that they are right. So it is not easy to have, even with moderate Jews, a rational discussion about what is actually happening in the Middle East.”

This minister did not suggest the problem was any specific Israeli policy. The problem, as he defined it, is the nature of the Jews. Adding to the absurdity, this man then responded to his critics this way: Anti-Semitism, he asserted, “has no place in today’s world and is fundamentally against our European values.” Of course, he has kept his job.

Unfortunately, we see examples like this one all across Europe. Sweden, for example, has long been a synonym for liberal tolerance. Yet in one of Sweden’s largest cities, Jews report increasing examples of harassment. When an Israeli tennis team visited for a competition, it was greeted with riots. So how did the mayor respond? By equating Zionism with anti-Semitism – and suggesting that Swedish Jews would be safer in his town if they distanced themselves from Israeli actions in Gaza. You don’t have to look far for other danger signs:

The Norwegian government forbids a Norwegian-based, German shipbuilder from using its waters to test a submarine being built for the Israeli navy.

Britain and Spain are boycotting an OECD tourism meeting in Jerusalem.

In the Netherlands, police report a 50% increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by these things. According to one infamous European poll a few years back, Europeans listed Israel ahead of Iran and North Korea as the greatest threat to world peace.

In Europe today, some of the most egregious attacks on Jewish people, Jewish symbols, and Jewish houses of worship have come from the Muslim population.

Unfortunately, far from making clear that such behavior will not be tolerated, too often the official response is what we’ve seen from the Swedish mayor – who suggested Jews and Israel were partly to blame themselves.

When Europe’s political leaders do not stand up to the thugs, they lend credence to the idea that Israel is the source of all the world’s problems – and they guarantee more ugliness. If that is not anti-Semitism, I don’t know what is.

That brings me to my second point: the importance of good relations between Israel and the United States. Some believe that if America wants to gain credibility in the Muslim world and advance the cause of peace, Washington needs to put some distance between itself and Israel. My view is the opposite. Far from making peace more possible, we are making hostilities more certain. Far from making things better for the Palestinian people, sour relations between the United States and Israel guarantees that ordinary Palestinians will continue to suffer.

The peace we all want will come when Israel feels secure – not when Washington feels distant.

Right now we have war. There are many people waging this war. Some blow up cafes. Some fire rockets into civilian areas. Some are pursuing nuclear arms. Some are fighting the soft war, through international boycotts and resolutions condemning Israel. All these people are watching the U.S.-Israeli relationship closely.

In this regard, I was pleased to hear the State Department’s spokesman clarify America’s position yesterday. He said that the United States recognizes “the special nature of the Israeli state. It is a state for the Jewish people.” This is an important message to send to the Middle East. When people see, for example, a Jewish prime minister treated badly by an American president, they see a more isolated Jewish state. That only encourages those who favor the gun over those who favor negotiation.

Ladies and gentlemen, back in 1937, a man named Vladimir Jabotinsky urged Britain to open up an escape route for Jews fleeing Europe. Only a Jewish homeland, he said, could protect European Jews from the coming calamity. In prophetic words, he described the problem this way: “It is not the anti-Semitism of men,” he said. “It is, above all, the anti-Semitism of things, the inherent xenophobia of the body social or the body economic under which we suffer.”

The world of 2010 is not the world of the 1930s. The threats Jews face today are different. But these threats are real. These threats are soaked in an ugly language familiar to anyone old enough to remember World War II. And these threats cannot be addressed until we see them for what they are: part of an ongoing war against the Jews.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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14 October, 2010

Bollywood film paints Australians as violent racists

This is what comes of political correctness. Ordinary Australians are being blamed for what are predominantly the deeds of African "refugees". Africans hate Indians because they are also coloured yet are much more successful in most ways than Africans are. But since about 2007 the Australian media have been very chary of mentioning the race of the attackers. A blanket of silence has descended. So most people would assume that the attackers were white. And on the rare occasion when the attacker is white THAT is mentioned, of course

A BOLLYWOOD blockbuster inspired by the violent attacks on Indian students in Australia has come under fire for producing "venom that's spewed against Australians".

Crook: it's Good to be Bad, tells the story of an Indian who moves to the Australian city of Melbourne and finds himself in the midst of race-motivated violence, the Herald Sun said.

In the film, Melbourne is depicted as a city rife with gang violence between Australians and Indians, while the locals are portrayed as beer-guzzling blokes and immoral women.

Indian critics have panned it for being sensationalist and its stereotyping of Australians. There was particular outrage against the inflammatory language made by the main character. "A country of ex-convicts. A country where they sleep with each other without marrying. A country where they don't take care of their families. Yes that's the sort of venom that's spewed against the Australians in Crook,'" an India Today reviewer wrote.

Last year, the Indian media heavily covered a series of violent assaults on Indian immigrants in Melbourne, including a 10-page special in Outlook magazine entitled "Why Aussies Hate Us".

Director Mohit Suri said he was inspired to make the film after visiting a convenience store in the western Melbourne suburb of Sunshine. "Inside the very same store one of the most brutal racist attacks had taken place just a few months back. The events as told to me were horrifying, about how an Indian was brutally beaten up only because of his colour and religion," he said in an interview with an Indian entertainment website.

SOURCE





If You Cant Beat Them, Silence Them

The Progressive Movement is desperate. The 2008 election was supposed to be the dawn of a new liberal era. An enlightened bureaucratic elite in Washington was supposed to enact a broad and transformative agenda that would save the economy, return the nation to prosperity, and legitimize big government for a generation.

But only the enactment of the agenda occurred, without any of the promised benefits. President Obama’s trillion-dollar stimulus and trillion-dollar health care entitlement are now law. The leftist bureaucrats have been empowered … but their policies have failed. Health insurance premiums are rising, poverty is up, and the nation’s unemployment rate hovers near 10%.

Faced with the obvious failure of their policies, the left is now desperately seeking to avoid accountability by blaming others. So President Barack Obama told a crowd in Philadelphia this weekend that “special interest groups” like the Chamber of Commerce are “spending unlimited amounts of money on attack ads.” The President continued: “It could be the oil industry. It could be the insurance industry. It could even be foreign-owned corporations. You don’t know because they don’t have to disclose. … Now, that’s not just a threat to Democrats – that’s a threat to our democracy.”

The President may say he is only interested in disclosure, but his policy prescription does not accomplish that. When Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced the DISCLOSE Act to the Senate he gave away the real aim of the bill. “The deterrent effect should not be underestimated,” Schumer said. And just what does the left want to deter Americans from doing? At the House committee DISCLOSE Act markup, Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) said: “I have no problem whatsoever keeping everybody out [of elections]. If I could keep all outside entities out, I would.”

The President is not interested in educating the American people by making everyone disclose their donations. He is only interested in silencing his opponents. That is why unions were specifically exempted from the DISCLOSE Act as were a slew of other interest groups.

On Face the Nation this Sunday, CBS host Bob Schieffer confronted White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod about a New York Times article showing that White House charges of “secret foreign money” “stealing our democracy” were completely baseless. Schieffer asked: “If the only charge, three weeks into the election that the Democrats can make is that there’s somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?”

Axelrod went on to contend that it is the responsibility of those the White House accuses to prove they aren’t breaking the law. This morning, NBC’s Chuck Todd described Axelrod’s answer as “McCarthy-esque” on Daily Rundown.

Yes. Baseless charges about foreigners stealing democracy is the best the left can do. Their policies have completely failed and they are afraid of being held accountable. The President’s response is to try and use the power of the federal government to deter all dissent. If there is a threat to our democracy in this election, it is not coming from the Chamber of Commerce.

SOURCE






Send fewer thugs to jail and save £20m a year, British judges and JPs told

Judges and magistrates were yesterday ordered to send fewer violent thugs to jail. New guidelines mean those guilty of grievous bodily harm or beating up a police officer will remain on the streets rather than going to prison.

And courts will be told to count the youth or remorse of an attacker as a mark in their favour, even though many assaults happen when pubs and clubs close and are committed by young people.

The Sentencing Council believes its move could save almost £20million a year to the prison and probation services and mean 4,000 fewer violent yobs being sent to jail.

But it provoked a storm of protest last night and comes against a political backdrop of Justice Secretary Ken Clarke declaring he wants to reduce sharply the number of short term jail sentences.

Lord Justice Leveson, who is chairman of the council, said judges and magistrates have been ‘ignoring’ guidelines and setting longer sentences for lesser assaults. Despite insisting that ‘none of us is soft on crime’, he was forced to deny the judges have acted in league with Mr Clarke, who is committed to sending fewer offenders to prison.

He added: ‘If this works, there will be less use of custody.’ But critics said the thinking behind the policy was ‘dubious’ and could create ‘more crime and more victims’.

Criminologist Dr David Green, of the Civitas think tank, said: ‘I do not believe that any experienced judge would think that current sentencing practice is disproportionate. ‘When you make the consequences of crime less severe, you will get more of it.’

The new rules would mean fewer jail sentences for common assault, assault on a police officer, causing actual bodily harm and assault trying to resist arrest.

For grievous bodily harm, an assault causing permanent disability, disfigurement, broken bones or injuries requiring lengthy treatment, attackers will not go to jail if they are considered to have factors in their favour. These include youth or immaturity, showing remorse, and causing the injury with a single blow.

The council’s guidelines were put out as a consultation and are likely to be given legal force next spring. Unlike previous sentencing rules handed down by predecessor bodies, they must be obeyed to the letter by judges and magistrates.

Lord Justice Leveson said: ‘What’s moving me is to get the system right, fair, proportionate and understandable.’ He added that there had been a ‘general trend towards longer sentences for all assault offences’ over the past ten years.

The guidelines could mean:

- Between 1,000 and 2,800 fewer offenders jailed each year for common assault.

- Between 300 and 900 fewer jailed each year for assault causing actual bodily harm.

- Between 200 and 700 fewer jailed each year for assault on a police officer.

- Between 15 and 50 fewer jailed each year for assault with intent to resist arrest.

- Between ten and 30 fewer jailed each year for causing grievous bodily harm.

‘There has been an increase in the severity of sentences at the lower end of the assault range and I think we’re trying to adjust that for reasons of proportionality, rather than anything else,’ he said. ‘I think there may be a slight increase at the very, very top, for the most serious offences of this type.’

Mr Clarke announced his policy of cutting down on numbers of criminals sent to prison in the summer. The aim, which disappointed many Tory MPs and voters, was to cut the 85,000 prison population and save the taxpayer money. Doubting that prison worked to cut crime, Mr Clarke said it cost £38,000 to keep someone in jail for a year, more than the fees to send a pupil to Eton.

His critics say that one major reason why crime has fallen in recent years is that judges and magistrates have chosen to send more offenders to jail, despite pressure from Labour politicians and from senior judges not to do so.

They also say that the cost of sending criminals to jail is small compared to the cost of the crimes they commit if they are left on the street to re-offend. The prison population has risen from around 55,000 in 1996 to about 85,000.

The Sentencing Council also hopes to reduce community sentences – including work details for offenders who may also be given curfews and electronic tags – and replace them in similar numbers by fines for lesser offenders.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said the Government was committed to ensuring that penalties deter crime, protect the public, punish offenders and cut re-offending. [How?}

SOURCE






Beware falling acorns! Health and safety lunacy reaches new peak with warning sign



It is an autumnal hazard that mankind has successfully negotiated for millions of years. Not that you would know from the latest advice from hospital health and safety chiefs who reckon that, after all this time, we need a little help in dealing with the danger of acorns. As a result signs have been put up around an oak tree warning ‘Caution Please Be Aware Of The Falling Acorns’.

Staff at the Brentwood Community Hospital in Essex erected the sign after a patient stepped on an acorn last year and suffered a slight sprain to her ankle. Although the patient did not sue, gardeners have also now been ordered to collect fallen acorns in the hospital grounds.

Andrew McGowan, 28, who was visiting a patient yesterday, said: ‘It’s health and safety madness really. You don’t need a sign to warn you about things falling from the tree. It happens at this time of year and you can see acorns on the ground.’
tree

Details emerged days after visitors to a park in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, were warned of falling conkers with a sign that proclaimed: ‘Beware Falling Conkers – Please Proceed with Care.’

The Brentwood hospital yesterday defended the move, citing the slip last year. A spokesman added: ‘Our groundsmen now sweep acorns up and they have put the signs up just to be on the safe side.’

SOURCE

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

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

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

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13 October, 2010

NY: Paladino condemns homosexuality, warns against 'brainwashing'

Political correctness does not come easily to Italians in Italy or Italian Americans. They have an admirable tendency to say what they think. Google "Silvio Berlusconi" if you want to find out more about political incorrectness in Italy. Silvio is the Prime Minister of Italy. In America think Tom Tancredo, Joe Arpaio and Joey Vento of Philly cheesesteak fame -- for instance

GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino today went well beyond his opposition to same-sex marriage, telling a Brooklyn Hasidic congregation that children should not be "brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option. It isn’t."

He told approximately 50 worshippers at the K’hal Adas Kashau synagogue in Williamsburg that children "would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family."

A prepared text of the speech distributed by leaders of the congregation before it was delivered was much stronger, declaring God disapproves of homosexuality and gays should be ashamed of themselves. "There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual," that text said. "That’s not how God created us, and that’s not the example that we should be showing our children."

Paladino campaign manager Michael Caputo claimed those remarks were part of an earlier draft prepared by the GOP candidate’s staffers and members of the congregation. When Paladino saw those lines, he disagreed with them and left them out of the speech, Caputo said. The congregation distributed the earlier draft in Paladino’s name without first clearing it with the campaign, Caputo claimed.

The congregation with knowledge of exactly what happened did not respond to calls for comment last night.

Paladino’s Democratic opponent, Andrew Cuomo, blasted the speech as "stunning homophobia and a glaring disregard for basic equality. "These comments, along with other views he has espoused, make it clear that he is way out of the mainstream and is unfit to represent New York," said Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto.

The speech came within weeks of several anti-gay crimes in the region - the suicide of bullied gay Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, the assault on a homosexual patron at the iconic Stonewall Inn in the West Village and the brutal anti-gay gang attack by the Latin Kings Goonies in The Bronx on Oct. 3.

Paladino’s harsh words about the gay community were blasted - even from members of his own party. "I don’t want New Yorkers to be brainwashed into thinking that ignorance is an equally valid and successful option. It isn’t," said Gregory Angelo, chairman of the Log Cabin Republicans of New York, a gay group.

And Democrat Christine Quinn, the City Council Speaker, said Paladino’s remarks are "dangerous" because they could incite further anti-gay attacks.

But Paladino insisted he was not advocating violence. "My approach is to live and let live," he said. "Don’t misquote me as wanting to hurt homosexual people in any way - that would be a dastardly lie," he said in the speech.

Paladino went on to say that religious values are under attack. "The ruling elite of this society has got to get over their hostility towards religious people and their values," he said. "We’ve got to stop mocking religion in this country. We have to stop pandering to the pornographers and the perverts who seek to target our children and destroy their lives,"

Paladino made another change to the speech before delivering it. The Williamsburg synagogue leaders asked him to strike a paragraph opposing the proposed mosque near Ground Zero. They did not wish the word "mosque" spoken in their house of worship.

His audience there and at an earlier appearance at a Borough Park synagogue, applauded much of Paladino’s anti-gay rhetoric.

"I oppose the homosexual agenda, whether they call it marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships," Paladino told congregants at the Karlsburg Synagogue. "Marriage is between a man and a woman," he said. "Tell your people that I am the religious-values candidate and my opponent is the ultra-liberal, socialist, social extremist that he is."

In introducing the candidate in Borough Park, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman on family issues for Rabbinical Alliance of America, praised Paladino’s anti-gay-marriage stance. "For 30 years or more, we have been kept down in the plantation by a liberal Democratic machine that throws us a few bread crumbs, a few shekels," the rabbi said. "For the first time in 3 and a half decades we have a gentleman who is - yes, he’s rough, he’s a little coarse, he’s not so dignified, but he tells it like it is."

Paladino praised the Hasidic community, saying, "Although my opponent and his liberal party and too many liberals in my party have pushed our culture terribly downhill, your community .¤.¤. can still band together to save societal values."

SOURCE






British police bastardry again

Photographer Dave Hogan was waiting at a red traffic light in North London when he reached over to the passenger seat to retrieve his new iPhone, which was about to fall on to the floor.

As he did so, there was a knock on the car window. Dave looked up to see a ­callow youth in a policeman’s uniform instructing him to pull over to the kerb. What followed was a Kafkaesque encounter with the bold future of London law enforcement.

The young officer, who had only recently graduated from the police academy at Hendon and was receiving on-the-job supervision from a WPC, told Hogan to park in a busy bus lane.

He pointed out that not only was he ­stationary, he wasn’t actually using the phone, merely moving it back on the seat to prevent it sliding off. In any event, it had a hands-free attachment.

Furthermore, he invited the officer to examine the directory in his iPhone, which would prove he hadn’t been making a call. Modern mobiles contain a record of the date, time and duration of all incoming and outgoing calls. It indicated that he had last used the phone a few minutes earlier, when he had pulled onto a petrol station forecourt for a can of pop and a packet of crisps.

There was no activity at the time the policeman claimed he had seen Dave using the phone. The last call recorded was at 1.09pm, a fact also confirmed by the telephone service provider from its own computerised log. This didn’t prevent the rookie cop writing out a ticket, specifying the time the alleged offence had taken place: 1.15pm.

Hogan insists he was ultra-polite to the officer, even though his patience was sorely tried. While parked in the bus lane, he saw a number of motorists drive past using their mobiles on the move. When he pointed this out, the young copper wasn’t interested. Dave appealed to the more experienced WPC, but she refused to intervene.

The policeman asked him to make a statement. Dave denied categorically that he had been using his phone and had firm evidence to prove it. ‘Why aren’t you writing this down?’ he asked.

‘I shall summarise your comments,’ he was told. The officer then asked him to sign the summary. Dave declined, on the perfectly reasonable grounds that it wasn’t what he had said. The ­interview then took a surreal turn.

Plod asked for his ethnic origin. Why? Just routine, sir. The police have to record the race and sex of everyone they stop. Dave said he was Welsh. Young Lochinvar ­studied his form, which contained an impressive catalogue of exotic ­ethnic categories. But not, apparently, exhaustive. After scouring it for a few moments, he announced: ‘I haven’t got a box for Welsh. I’ll put you down as White Other.’

He gave Dave a summons, telling him he had a week to plead guilty by post, pay a £60 fine and accept three penalty points on his licence. The alternative was to challenge the ticket in court, and run the risk of being disqualified from driving and fined £1,000, if the magistrate sides with the Old Bill and refuses to believe his version of events.

Dave would also have to take a day off work and pay a lawyer £500 to argue his case. Both police officers could also be tied up in court for a whole day, reducing still further the pathetically small number of bobbies on the beat.

If the court accepts the phone ­company’s record, proving that no call had been made or received at the time alleged in the summons, Dave would be cleared and would be entitled to claim costs from the police. In other words, the taxpayer would end up footing the bill for this farce.

Dave tells me he intends to fight and the whole affair has left a sour taste. He has had a clean licence for 30 years, a remarkable achievement for any motorist in the age of the Gatso, let alone a Fleet Street photographer in a flash 4x4.

He’s even prepared to acknowledge an excess of zeal in an over-­enthusiastic young bobby making his first tentative steps on the street in an official culture of bureaucratic box-ticking and a voracious appetite for income raised by fines. But that doesn’t explain the ­attitude of the dopey WPC supposed to be babysitting her young charge. She could have nipped the whole thing in the bud when it became obvious a mistake had been made.

In his long career in newspapers, Dave has always been happy to help the police. Now he says he wouldn’t give them the time of day. This incident blocked a bus lane for 25 minutes and has shaken Dave’s belief in the honesty of the police. He never imagined he would be fitted up for a phone call he can prove he didn’t make. He naturally wonders why the police would go to such lengths to criminalise a law-abiding, middle-class taxpayer.

Yesterday, as the Equalities ­Commission published its latest report on ‘fairness’, there was the usual furore over the high number of young black men supposedly stopped unnecessarily by the police. But I’ve never seen any statistics for the number of middle-class, white — or White Other, come to that — motorists buggered about for no good reason.

Dave’s promised to keep me posted, but I shouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the day I haven’t received a raft of emails from Daily Mail readers relating similar tales of woe and ­officiousness on the part of Plod.

And the police wonder why Middle Britain’s faith in the forces of law and order is at an all-time low. Mind how you go.

SOURCE





The perverse British welfare system again

Child poverty is higher in working families than in jobless households, study shows

There are now more children living in poverty among working families than in homes where no-one has a job, analysis revealed yesterday. It found that the number of children who live below the official poverty line even though at least one of their parents goes out to work has jumped by a third – 80,000 – in just ten years.

At the same time there has been a drop of a quarter in the total number of children in poor families where no-one works – largely thanks to the last Labour government’s drive to give state help and extra benefits to single mothers.

Almost all of the impoverished working families have two parents and many are families in which the father holds down a job while the mother stays at home to bring up the children.

The figures, from a report by the charity Trust for London, cover the capital alone. But they reflect a slide into poverty for working families that has also been shown up by Whitehall figures over the past three years.

Department of Work and Pensions calculations suggest there are now around 1.8million children in the country who are living below the poverty line, even though at least one of their parents goes out to work.

The figures come at a time of growing controversy over the Coalition Government’s plans. Ministers have promised to reward working people and withdraw help from shirkers. But plans announced so far suggest middle-income working families will be hit.

Yesterday’s report, London’s Poverty Profile, measured families living on incomes that are under 60 per cent of average income - the figure used by Whitehall as the poverty line. In the financial year that ended in March 2008, for a family with two parents and two children under 14 this was £288 a week.

The report said that in London that the number of children in poverty in homes where no-one has a job had fallen from 415,000 in the late 1990s to 305,000 in 2009 – a drop of almost 27 per cent. But the number of poor children in working families went up from 240,000 to 320,000, an increase of 33 per cent. ‘The vast majority of children in low-income, working households are in couple households,’ the report said. ‘So in-work poverty is much more strongly associated with couple rather than lone parent households.’

It added: ‘This change reflects national trends – the number of children in low-income working households in the UK is now at a record level. ‘Moreover this number actually increased during the first months of the recession, as people in work moved from full time to part-time work, and households with two earners became single earner households.’

Other analysts have pointed to the way the benefits system favours single parents, particularly through the tax credit system. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that in some cases a single mother is £200 a week better off than a couple would be because of the benefit trap for two-parent families.

Dr Dan Boucher of the charity CARE, which last week showed that the Coalition changes to child benefit and tax credits will mean an effective tax increase of over 40 per cent for some one-earner families, said state policies were pushing families apart.

‘The Government uses taxpayers’ money to make it more rather than less likely that children will be brought up in one parent homes,’ he said. ‘We must move to a new system that is supportive of what research demonstrates is the best environment for child development, the two-parent family, and in which work pays.’

Bharat Mehta of Trust for London said that his charity’s report ‘gives us a real insight into the impact the recession has had’. He added: ‘We call upon the Chancellor carefully to consider what impact his cuts will have, and in particular who will pay the greatest price for them.’

SOURCE







British cops want to be above the law

They often already are de facto. Now they want to make it de jure

Britain’s most senior police officer has privately lobbied the Home Secretary to make it more difficult for civilians to sue Scotland Yard. Sir Paul Stephenson claimed that money is being wasted fighting speculative law suits by civilians alleging brutality or wrongful arrest.

The Metropolitan Police commissioner also urged the Home Secretary to load higher costs onto officers and other staff suing police forces at employment tribunals over claims of discrimination or unfair treatment.

He added that members of the public should be charged a fee for making Freedom of Information requests, which he said were burdening police forces with unmanageable levels of paperwork.

But civil rights groups have condemned Sir Paul’s suggestions as an attempt to put the police beyond the rule of law.

The Met commissioner wrote to Theresa May, the Home Secretary, on June 22. In the letter, marked confidential, he set out a list of proposals designed to cut costs and free officers from red tape.

Calling for more obstacles to be placed in the way of members of the public bringing civil claims against the police, he wrote: "We believe there needs to be a radical shakeup of the system; currently for every pound paid out in compensation, up to £10 or sometimes more has to be paid out in legal costs to the claimants' lawyers.

"One of the key aspects is that the average settlements are well under £10,000 and most under £5,000, in other words these are not major areas of police misconduct with long-lasting consequences but often technical breaches."

James Welch, of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "The ability to challenge police misconduct in court is a vital constitutional safeguard against abuse of power. Under current rules, if you lose a case in the civil courts you can expect to be ordered to pay your successful opponent's legal costs." "A service bound to uphold the rule of law should not attempt to carve out an exception for itself," he told The Guardian.

Sir Paul also complained that police are forced to waste time and money defending employment tribunal claims brought by staff who later drop them, without incurring any financial penalty.

"As you will be aware, currently there are no cost disincentives for claimants lodging speculative employment tribunal claims which are withdrawn after considerable public resources have been expended in order to respond to such claims.

"We propose that a fee for issuing claims could be introduced and the grounds upon which costs can be made widened to meet these concerns," he wrote.

"Similarly, there is currently no incentive for claimants to accept early offers of settlement and substantial cost could be saved if claimants were put on risk as to costs from the time that such an offer is made."

Paul McKeever, chief of the Police Federation of England and Wales, denied that officers and staff are making “speculative” claims against the forces that employ them.

"Going to an employment tribunal is the last resort people take after being frustrated by the system. Nobody wants to go to an employment tribunal – it's a horrible process to go through," he said.

Sir Paul also urged the Home Secretary to slap fees on freedom of information requests after his force received 3,373 such requests last year.

He wrote: "We welcome the recent government commitment to review the application of FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] and would encourage you to consider introducing a fee (as there is for Data Protection Act requests) to bring it into line with the Data Protection Act."

A spokesman for the Home Office last night confirmed that Mrs May had received Sir Paul’s letter. He said: “The Home Secretary enjoys a good relationship with Sir Paul Stephenson. It is usual for him to write to her with his opinions and the home secretary always considers them carefully."

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



12 October, 2010

Free baby Cheyenne

Britain is not alone in having Stalinist social workers

"Happy birthday. You're property of the State." This is the message that was given to Cheyenne Irish, the newborn daughter of New Hampshire residents Jonathan Irish and Stephanie Taylor, who was literally stolen from her parents hours after her birth on October 6.

While there are reportedly some "very serious" criminal allegations involved in this matter, the focal point of the case should be this: Among the reasons cited by New Hampshire's child "protection" directorate as supposed justification for the seizure of Cheyenne was the fact that "Mr. Irish associated with a militia known as the, [sic] `Oath Keepers,' and had purchased several different types of weapons including a rifle, handgun and taser."

"Whether or not the charges against Mr. Irish are true, this action is entirely unconstitutional and represents a very dangerous precedent," Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, a practicing defense attorney, pointed out to Pro Libertate. "Using this man's political views and alleged affiliations to define parental suitability in any way is entirely illegitimate, and a direct threat to the rights of parents who are political activists of any kind."

This is hardly the first time law enforcement officials and social workers have cited "political extremism" to justify severe and extra-constitutional sanctions against people who have not been convicted of an actual crime.

Just a few months ago, police in Salem County, Massachusetts arrested an innocent man named Gregory Girard on palpably fraudulent criminal charges because his wife -- acting as a dutiful collectivist drone -- reported that he had developed "extremist" political views.

Cheyenne "wasn't even 16 hours old when they came in and stole her from us," reports her father Jonathan. The head of security at Concord Hospital "had a nurse come in while Cheyenne was sleeping [who] lied to us that they just wanted to take her to the nursery to see the doctor to be discharged. Even though I said NO to have the doctor come in the room they took her anyway.... I followed [them] out to the nursery because I didn't want my daughter out of my sight, as we were walking out I saw several gentlemen wearing suits with detective badges and my gut just started wrenching."

"They rushed her into the nursery and locked her in," Jonathan continues. "[W]hile I was talking to one of the other nurses the head of security comes up behind me, grabs my arm and starts walking me down the hall saying `you need to keep an open mind, you need to just hear them out' and he just kept repeating himself ignoring my questions as to who `they' were."

"When he got me in Stephanie's hospital room and sat me down on the couch the police department and DCYF [Division of Children, Youth and Family services -- that is, the child-snatcher apparat] showed up. Three uniformed patrol officers and 3-4 detectives with 2 DCYF social workers walked in the room.... [One] of the patrolmen asked if he could pat me down. I said NO, not giving my consent.... The officer grabbed my wrist, bent it behind my back and stood me up and proceeded to pat me down anyway."

After seizing a pocketknife and cigarette lighter and asking if Jonathan had "any other weapons" -- officer safety uber alles, you know -- the childnappers "gave us a fabricated affidavit ... telling us they were taking custody of our newborn daughter."

Irish refers to Cheyenne's mother, Stephanie Taylor, as his fiancee. The affidavit mentions that the couple had been under DCYF scrutiny "for approximately 21 months ... in a case involving two children of Stephanie Taylor; neglect petitions were filed on January 7, 2009 and a Termination of Parental Rights trial was recently concluded as to these two children...."

For reasons not specified in the document, Irish was "ordered to attend Ending the Violence with Scott Hampton; however, to date, has not completed this program." (Remember this point; we'll return to it anon.) The police complain that they have "responded to multiple calls" involving Irish and firearms, which resulted in "a pending charge for possession of a concealed weapon without a permit." It was in the context of that trivial paperwork matter that the affidavit mentioned Irish's "association" with the Oath Keepers, which was misrepresented in the affidavit as a "militia."

The Oath Keepers is an organization of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who have pledged not to carry out patently unconstitutional orders. The group's founder, Stewart Rhodes, emphasizes that it encourages lawful, peaceful non-cooperation, rather than armed insurrection, as a way of interposing against the all-encompassing criminal assault by the Regime against individual rights.

If Mr. Irish is a legitimate criminal suspect -- as opposed to a troubled parent who is considered a political criminal -- why wasn't he taken into custody? Why was he left relatively free, while his newborn daughter was wrenched from her mother and father through deliberate deception and the threat of lethal force?

The Oath Keepers have been targeted by the so-called Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an immensely profitable leftist "watchdog" group run by the degenerate fraud named Morris Dees. Through an illicit relationship with law enforcement agencies, both federal and local, the SPLC has become deeply involved in an effort to indoctrinate police (as well as educators and social workers) regarding the ubiquitous menace of "anti-government extremism." Rhodes points out that the SPLC, a nominally private group that is unaccountable to the public, is a member of the "Homeland Security Advisory Council" (HSAC) which published a report on domestic "radicalization" and "extremism" last Spring.

A work in progress, the HSAC describes itself as striving to prevent "violent crime that is motivated by extreme ideological beliefs" through "threat mitigation" and "community policing." That last term of art came into vogue during the early part of Bill Clinton's first term: Washington began to lavish funding on states and municipalities for the purpose of integrating the police with the social services bureaucracy, the better to create a seamless web from which no family could escape.

The domestic situation behind all of this is a mess. As noted above, Mr. Irish and his still-married "fiancee" have some baggage. The State insists that he's an abuser and she's a victim; they both stoutly deny the charges, and he's not being treated like a criminal suspect. Furthermore, their landlord maintains that Mr. Irish is "a very honorable person who loves his country. And I've watched the state and the police systematically hammer him."

Looking into some additional details in the Cheyenne Irish case, I'm struck by the fact that the overt act of "neglect" supposedly committed by her mother, Stephanie Taylor, was giving birth to the child. This would mean the only way she could have avoided being charged with "neglect" at this point would have been to abort the baby.

Granted, there is a backstory here -- a very confusing and troubling one. As noted above, Mr. Irish and his still-married "fiance" have plenty of problems, some of which are, to some extent, of their own creation. We're still left to deal with the fact that the State claims the authority to seize a child who is a victim of "neglect" by virtue of being born -- and that those responsible for that act defended it, in part, by referring to the political views of the child's biological father.

SOURCE





Hitler still has his followers among the British Left

As he did in the 1930s

According to author and columnist Virginia Ironside, most adopted kids would be better off dead. As would most children she considers "unfit". In fact, she says, a "loving" mother would smother a sickly child with a pillow, because the "suffering" of being ill makes that life meaningless and not worth living. She made these vile assertions in defense of abortion while appearing on the BBC's Sunday Morning Live during a discussion grossly entitled "Can abortion be a kindness?" First, her odious attempt to argue that abortion is a "loving choice" because some kids, in her mind, are unwanted. Her tunnel-visioned, sad excuse for a mind can't seem to fathom the fact that the children are always wanted, by someone. You know, like people with hearts and compassion.

Not having an abortion can amount to selfishness.

Abortion can often be seen as something wicked or irresponsible but in fact it can be a moral and unselfish act. If a baby is to be born severely disabled or totally unwanted, surely abortion is the act of a loving mother.

I was rendered speechless when I first watched this. Killing a child for being inconvenient to someone is "loving, moral and unselfish"? So, having a baby is, therefore, selfish? Besides her utter lack of a soul, she is completely morally bankrupt. And I think she has some explaining to do to very happy and loved children who have been adopted as well as to the mothers who, according to her, were so selfish as to give that child life. My friend, Rick Sheridan, can teach her a thing or two about what an actual unselfish act is. His adopted baby girl can also teach her what a loving mother actually does. Her mama gave her life and gave her A life. She didn't kill her. She unselfishly bore her and gifted Rick and his wife with a beautiful baby girl. I suggest Virginia look at a picture of Rick and his beautiful daughter and try to explain to her why she would have been better off dead.

Virginia Ironside then followed up her insane arguments for eugenics due to "unwantedness" (it's so crazy, it needs its own word) by being a proponent of killing children, unborn or born, whose health isn't up to snuff for her standards.

And I think that if I were a mother of a suffering child, I would be the first to want I mean a deeply suffering child I would be the first one to put a pillow over its head. I would with any suffering thing and I think the difference is that my feeling of horror suffering is many greater than my feeling of getting rid of a couple of cells because suffering can go on for years.

Hey, you know what else can go on for years, Virginia? Someone's life. You should know. You authored a book called The Virginia Monologues - 20 Reasons Why Growing Old is Great. Yet, you'd willingly kill a child and not give him or her that chance to grow old. Growing old is only great for you and whomever you deem fit enough, huh?

In ancient Sparta, babies who were considered handicapped or in any way not perfectly healthy were exposed to the elements, left on a mountainside to die. Have to "purify" society and all! That was a long time ago and thankfully modern civilization has come a long way. Now we use pillows.

Gee, it's too bad we don't have a fancy, new-fangled thing called medicine. To pro-abortionists, an illness is a reason to kill a baby. In fact, they believe that life is expendable for any reason if it doesn't fit into your personal plans. This includes life that is outside of the woman's body. Ms. Ironside, like most pro-abortionists, also fails to mention those pesky babies who won't cooperate and who survive abortion attempts. Much like our President, who gives them so little thought that he, as a Senator in Illinois debating a Born Alive bill, said this:

As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if that fetus, or child - however way you want to describe it - is now outside the mother's womb and the doctor continues to think that it's nonviable but there's, let's say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they're not just coming out limp and dead..

However you want to describe "it". Sort of like the suffering "things" Ms. Ironside referred to above. And, not coming out limp and dead. How dare they insist on having the human will to live and the strong spirit to survive.

Lest you think Ms. Ironside is just some lone loon, The Guardian helpfully pointed out what monsters Leftists are by running an "article" by one of Ms. Ironside's fellow travelers:

The decision is always portrayed as being inherently irresponsible and destructive - Ironside argued that, if it prevented an unwanted child or a child being born profoundly disabled, then it was a good decision that a woman could be proud of. It wasn't the most tactful pro-choice argument you've ever heard (at one point, she alludes to "fatherless" children in the same bracket as the unwanted: that will enrage a few single mothers), but it wasn't a radical new shift in pro-choice thinking.

Yeah, that's the problem: It might be offensive to some single mothers. The moral bankruptcy is staggering. However, at least she's honest. It is NOT a new shift in pro-abortion thinking. This is what they believe and it always has been.

The reason it's controversial is twofold: first, pro-choicers have totally backed out of the abortion conversation, which has in consequence become dominated by anti-abortionists; second, because Ironside collapses "disabled" and "unwanted" into the same category. This is pretty insulting to disabled people..

Oh, we wouldn't want to be insulting! Killing is okay, but insulting? That's taboo! Unless of course, you are one of the "unwanteds". No one cares what you feel.

Of course Ironside is not waging a war against the disabled: she simply said "life isn't a gift per se". There are plenty of circumstances that make it more burdensome than joyful.

They have taken the miracle of life and have made it expendable and burdensome. On purpose. There's the difference between Ms. Ironside and I, and others like me, right there. We know that life is a priceless gift. A child's life has infinite value that cannot ever be fully measured. No alleged burden can take away from that fact, nor from the multitude of moments of love and joy, of human touch and loving arms, of beauty and grace, of happiness and wonder.

SOURCE




The Misadventures of Mohammad

Mike Adams

The Muslim world isn’t going to like this one bit. There’s an exhibit in a Colorado art gallery, which is stirring up outrage from observers who say it depicts Mohammad in a sexual act.

Enrique Chagoya's “The Misadventures of Mohammad” was initially created in 2003. It is a multi-panel piece in which "cultural and religious icons are presented with humor and placed in contradictory, unexpected and sometimes controversial contexts," the artist's publisher, Shark's Ink, said in a recent interview with Fox News.

The lithograph has been on display since, of all dates, Sept. 11 at the taxpayer-funded Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland, Colorado. It is part of an 82-print exhibit by 10 artists who have worked with Colorado printer Bud Shark. It includes several images of Mohammad, including one with what appears to be explicit homosexual content.

Scores of protesters gathered outside the museum over the weekend to object to Chagoya's work, including one Loveland Councilman, who failed to get the issue on the council agenda. But, regardless, he said he'll keep pressing to have what he has called "smut" and "pornography" taken down.

"This is a taxpayer-supported, public museum and it’s family-friendly," another member of the city council told the Denver Post. She added, "This is not something the community can be proud of." Other critics said the piece is appallingly disrespectful and offensive to Muslims everywhere.

"It is visual profanity," an art gallery owner told the local Loveland newspaper. She added, "It disgraces the mightiest prophet of the God of all creation. He may have been a pedophile but he was not a homosexual. To say otherwise is pure defamation."

But the artist, a professor at Stanford University, said he was simply making a statement on problems he sees with religious institutions, including the Islamic religion. "My intention is to critique religious institutions, since they affect everybody's lives - even people outside the religious sects," Chagoya told FoxNews.com.

"In my work mentioned above I address the role of the Islamic religion among other religious groups imposing its credo on cultures all over the globe. I also critique Islam's position against same-sex marriage while allowing pedophiles to be reviled as prophets.”

Chagoya said he's surprised by the response, saying there were no objections when the piece, which also includes comic book characters, Mexican pornography, Mayan symbols and ethnic stereotypes, was shown last year at a museum in Denver. “No one seemed to mind then,” he added. “I can’t understand the sudden outrage and intolerance towards satire.”

"My work is about the corruption of the spiritual by the institutions behind it, not about the beliefs of anyone. I respect people's opinions and I hope they respect mine," Chagoya said. "All I do is use my art to express my anxieties, with some sense of humor. Let’s agree to disagree, and long live our First Amendment.”

A local painter, who was part of a smaller group of counter-demonstrators outside the museum, said she agreed with Chagoya. "We have to be a country where freedom of expression thrives even if it offends the d-- Muslims," she bluntly told the local paper. “If you don’t like it you are probably stuck in the stone ages. When you manage to get running water get back in touch with me.”

The director of cultural services at the museum said the controversy has attracted people to the exhibit. The museum had over 600 visitors on Saturday, compared with an average of 75 and nearly 300 on Sunday, compared to the average 30 to 40, according to the local paper. "We invite everyone to come in, regardless of opinion, to write on a comment slip," she told the Reporter Herald.

Professor Chagoya, when asked whether he fears reprisals from Muslims, had this to say on Friday: “If you can’t understand satire – whether it mocks exalted professors or exalted prophets - then jump on the next camel and get the hell out of the country. This is America, not a Muslim theocracy."

SOURCE






Australia: Bureaucrats getting fat on programs designed to help blacks

ABORIGINAL politician Alison Anderson has slammed the massive increase in bureaucracy under the federal intervention into remote indigenous communities.

Ms Anderson, the independent member for the central Australian seat of MacDonnell, said the dramatic increase in red tape was impeding the development of remote economies and entrenching the welfare dependence in remote towns.

"More and more money is being wasted in bureaucracy," Ms Anderson said. "There is more and more whitefellas coming to talk to us and nothing gets done. "Money is being just poured into the bureaucracy and there are no outcomes.''

An investigation by The Australian has revealed a massive increase in the number of public servants employed in the NT since the intervention began, with the number of extra bureaucrats employed since 2007 almost equalling the number of front-line workers such as police, teachers and health workers.

But indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin has defended the intervention's progress, saying it was important to ensure public funds for indigenous services were used effectively and responsibly.

As well as an increase of 141 teachers, more than 60 police officers, and hundreds of nurses and doctors, schoolchildren were being fed properly at school and safe houses and support services for women and children had been expanded, Ms Macklin's office said.

Ms Anderson was a strong supporter of the intervention in its early days, in opposition to her colleagues within the NT Labor government who slammed the program as the "black kids' Tampa".

But the Aboriginal politician - who was the NT's Indigenous Policy Minister but quit the government in disgust at the wastage surrounding the $672 million Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program - has become deeply disillusioned with the direction of Aboriginal policy in the NT.

"I just think the intervention is finished, absolutely finished," Ms Anderson said. "Communities have actually gone backwards. There is no employment for indigenous people. It's all just training for the sake of training."

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



11 October, 2010

ANATOMY OF AN AMBUSH



If you read enough stories about Arab mobs attempting to lynch Jews in Israel, you notice a few common themes:

1--Use of very young children (or women) to freeze the "Yahud" target;

2--A team of older killers who step forward when the kids have completed their task;

3--Redundant camerawork to ensure that an anti-Jewish narrative can be fabricated from the incident, no matter what actually happened.

Considering this history, we can only imagine the horrific scene that would have ensued had David Be'eri (who was driving with his young son in the car with him) not STEPPED ON THE GAS and unhesitatingly knocked aside the little soulless human sandbag who was attempting to hurl a rock through his windshield from 5 feet away. Note carefully the details of this episode:

1--At .03, a friendly chat with a local driver (indicating neighborhood support for and knowledge of the planned lynching). Also, you can count no less than 6 pre-teen human sandbags, most wearing designer jeans. (Didn't the Khmer Rouge specialize in exploiting children as killers?)

2--Five of the kids run up the street directly at the honking car (.08-.10). But the car doesn't stop, so the murderous plan is disrupted.

3--Two OLDER "Asian youths" move in to hurl more rocks from closer to the car. (.15-.17)

4--At least five adults (not including the cameraman for this video) holding notably sophisticated, expensive cameras position themselves to get various better angles (.13-.21). These people are almost surely with the Palestinian Authority, not alJazeera.

5--The entire rear window of Mr. Be'eri's car is smashed out (.22-.25).

6--A team of older people who seem to be in charge take it upon themselves to bundle the little cretin into a van--notice his hands on the door (.37-.45) as they put him in. Does it look like he wants to get rescued?

Keep this failed Pallywood scene in mind as you read or watch the monotonous dirge of stories from lamestream media morons denouncing the arrogant-brutal-racist-insensitive-violent-provocative behavior of "extremist Jewish settlers" towards their peaceful Arab neighbors. Also, never forget that death by stoning ("lapidation") is an ancient Arab custom that is still popular to this day.

By the way, if the comments on this YouTube video are any indication, Israel may have turned a corner in terms of non-Jewish sympathy for the Arabs. I've never seen the words "I wished the kid died" posted so many times in one place.

SOURCE





Muslim Brotherhood Declares War on America; Will America Notice?

Barry Rubin

This is one of those obscure Middle East events of the utmost significance that is ignored by the Western mass media, especially because they happen in Arabic, not English; by Western governments, because they don't fit their policies; and by experts, because they don't mesh with their preconceptions.

This explicit formulation of a revolutionary program makes it a game-changer. It should be read by every Western decisionmaker and have a direct effect on policy because this development may affect people's lives in every Western country.

OK, enough of a build-up? Well, it isn't exaggerated. So don't think the next sentence is an anticlimax. Here we go:

The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has endorsed (Arabic) (English translation by MEMRI) anti-American Jihad and pretty much every element in the al-Qaida ideology book. Since the Brotherhood is the main opposition force in Egypt and Jordan as well as the most powerful group, both politically and religiously, in the Muslim communities of Europe and North America this is pretty serious stuff.

By the way, no one can argue that he merely represents old, tired policies of the distant past because the supreme guide who said these things was elected just a few months ago. His position reflects current thinking.

Does that mean the Egyptian, Jordanian, and all the camouflaged Muslim Brotherhood fronts in Europe and North America are going to launch terrorism as one of their affiliates, Hamas, has long done? No.

But it does mean that something awaited for decades has happened: the Muslim Brotherhood is ready to move from the era of propaganda and base-building to one of revolutionary action. At least, its hundreds of thousands of followers are being given that signal. Some of them will engage in terrorist violence as individuals or forming splinter groups; others will redouble their efforts to seize control of their countries and turn them into safe areas for terrorists and instruments for war on the West.

When the extreme and arguably marginal British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary says that Islam will conquer the West and raise its flag over the White House, that can be treated as wild rhetoric. His remark is getting lots of attention because he said it in English in an interview with CNN. Who cares what he says?

But when the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood says the same thing in Arabic, that's a program for action, a call to arms for hundreds of thousands of people, and a national security threat to every Western country.

The Brotherhood is the group that often dominates Muslim communities in the West and runs mosques. Its cadre control front groups that are often recognized by Western democratic governments and media as authoritative. Government officials in many countries meet with these groups, ask them to be advisers for counter-terrorist strategies and national policies, and even fund them.

President Barack Obama speaks about a conflict limited solely to al-Qaida. And if one is talking about the current military battle in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen that point makes sense. Yet there is a far bigger and wider battle going on in which revolutionary Islamists seek to overthrow their own rulers and wage long-term, full-scale struggle against the West. If it doesn't involve violence right now it will when they get strong enough or gain power.

More HERE





Huge bureaucratic waste by Britain's Left

Labour wasted hundreds of millions of pounds on empty offices and mobile phones for the most junior civil servants, it will be revealed today.

Sir Philip Green, who has been brought in by the Tories to eradicate government waste, says taxpayers may even have paid for officials’ personal calls on their free BlackBerrys.

The owner of Topshop and BHS will today publish a report exposing how departments sometimes have no idea what they are spending public money on.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, who has seen the report, said it showed that financial controls across Whitehall are ‘lamentably bad’. The Government could use the report as justification for a massive round of cuts to departments.

David Cameron caused controversy in August when he appointed Sir Philip to produce the report on how government could make better use of its assets, property and kit. His Lib Dem coalition partners – led by Chris Huhne – were annoyed because the Topshop owner is rumoured to have avoided paying UK tax.

The report will show that public sector bodies are spending £10million a year on empty offices, including space in Victoria, central London, for the Highways Agency.

The billionaire has found that thousands of officials get free BlackBerrys and other mobiles, despite working nine-to-five at their desks. And he says millions of pounds are being wasted because police authorities are paying over the odds for uniforms.

An official said: ‘Sir Philip was also amazed that different police authorities order the same uniforms separately from the same suppliers. They could be saving millions of pounds if they bought in bulk.’

His study will show that different departments are paying massively varying prices for the same furniture, office supplies and computers.Sir Philip also looked at spending on advertising, consultants and PR.

Mr Maude said he would be introducing strict limits and rules on spending. For example, every IT project worth more than £1million would have to be signed off by him.

A Downing Street source said: ‘Sir Philip has found waste on just about every item you could imagine a government department spending money on – desks, computers, pens. You name it, it’s there.’

Sir Philip and his wife are worth more than £4billion. Energy secretary Mr Huhne has said his appointment as advisor had sent the ‘wrong message’. He has said: ‘Philip Green could clearly, if he were to arrange his tax affairs in a different manner and spend rather more time in the country, be paying rather a lot more tax.’

SOURCE






Three years in jail without trial. India? Africa? China? Russia? No: Australia

Bureaucracy works its usual evil in Australia too: The death of a prisoner in a Queensland jail prompts the question: why was he still awaiting trial after almost three years inside? The evidence seems to point to his involvement in a death. But what if he was innocent?

What do we know about Adam Cartledge? Not a lot except that police reckon he murdered his ex-girlfriend, Michelle Rigg. His best friend, a bloke named Arran Jeffries, couldn't believe it when his mate was charged. saying he was "not a violent person" Whether he changed his mind when Cartledge allegedly led police to her body in a shallow grave is not recorded.

However, we do know is that all this happened almost three years ago, Rigg, 28, was reported missing on November 26, 2007, three days alter she disappeared from a duplex she shared with Cartledge, 39. Cartledge appeared in Southport Magistrates Court on December 3, 2007, charged with her murder.

Last Tuesday, Cartledge was found dead in his cell at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre. The cause has not yet been made public but there are no suspicious circumstances. But there are disgraceful circumstances because Cartledge was still being held awaiting trial almost three years after he was arrested. He wasn't due to appear in court again until June next year.

He may have been a vicious killer but the fact is that he hadn't been found guilty of anything - not even jaywalking - yet he had been banged up in prison for almost three years. A legal maxim has it that justice delayed is justice denied. Cartledge wasn't just denied justice, he didn't even catch a glimpse of it.

And, somewhere, are family and friends who will never see Ms Rigg's memory receive justice. Cartledge, Ms Rigg and the community have been badly served by a system that allowed this to happen. The original police inquiry was pretty standard, with Cartledge charged fairly pronto and Ms Rigg's remains found not long after. Yet, it was almost a year later that Cartledge appeared in court and was committed for trial.

In February this year - you do the sums - he appeared in the Supreme Court before Justice Peter Applegarth. There, prosecutor Belinda Merrin was granted an adjournment on behalf of both the Crown and the defence so a singlet found on Ms Rigg's body could be further examined and a pathologists report could be gathered. This would take six months!

What choice did Justice Applegarth have, when both the Crown and the defence sought the adjournment in the pursuit of justice as they saw it? The best efforts of men and women of intellect, learning, integrity and goodwill unwittingly led to events that delayed justice until eternity.

No one is to blame but we are entitled to wonder about the workloads and/or efficiencies of the courts, the prosecution and the defence that made these delays inevitable. And we are entitled to wonder about the adequacy and the funding of scientific inquiry in Queensland that judicial exhibits and evidence have to be examined in Victoria and take so long

It's not a new issue but it refuses to go away. In this case, the inadequacies have followed a man to his grave. The evidence seems to point to Cartledge's involvement in Ms Rigg's death, or at least in the disposal of her body. It was sufficient for him to be committed for trial. But what if he were innocent? Magna Carta guaranteed: "To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice."

In this case, no rights were sold or refused, but justice was patently denied to both Cartledge and Ms Rigg. And it is denied to many others, with reports that prisoners in Queensland spend on average 6.4 months in custody compared with 5.9 months in Victoria and NSW.

Sympathy for Cartledge will be limited but these sorts of disgraceful delays might be more important to our confidence in the legal system than any passing anger about the fate of a few kiddie-fiddlers. An inquiry is needed if justice is to be anything more than a theoretical concept in Queensland.

The article above by Terry Sweetman appeared (print only) in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on 10 October, 2010

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

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

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

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



10 October, 2010

Is Hate Speech Protected?

Bill O'Reilly makes a respectful and respectable case below but I disagree with him. There are already too many infringements of free speech to admit any more. And note that what Fred Phelps says (God hates f*gs") is essentially what St Paul says in Romans chapter 1. Censoring ANYONE from preaching a Bible message anywhere at any time would be a huge collapse of America's civilizational foundations

Put yourself in this position: You lose a son in Iraq. He is killed fighting for his country. You arrange a funeral for him, an event that is emotionally devastating for your family and friends. Outside that funeral, protestors hold signs saying that God killed your son because he fought for a country that "tolerates" homosexuals. Some of them curse at people attending the service.

That's exactly what happened to Albert Snyder and his family in Maryland. In response, Snyder sued the leader of the hate group, Fred Phelps, and a jury awarded him millions. But the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia overturned the verdict on appeal and even imposed court costs on the Snyder family. The judges rationalized their misguided ruling by writing: "Although reasonable people may disagree about the appropriateness of the Phelps' protest, this conduct simply does not satisfy the heavy burden required for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress under Maryland law."

"Reasonable people may disagree about the appropriateness of the Phelps protest"? Are you kidding me? Who exactly thinks God wanted Matthew Snyder dead because America does not persecute gay people? Osama bin Laden?

The federal court's ruling is a legal ruse, a bunch of pinheaded mumbo-jumbo that seeks to justify injurious behavior under the guise of free speech. Forty-eight attorneys general have filed an amicus brief in support of the Snyder family. These prosecutors well understand that words can be used as weapons designed solely to harm American citizens. There is no "reasonable" debate in what the vicious protestors did. They intentionally wanted to inflict emotional distress on the grieving family of a dead soldier. That is against civil law.

One footnote: When Albert Snyder told the court he could not pay the court costs, Phelps told the press he should use his son's death benefits to satisfy the judgment. I hope those judges are sleeping well.

If Phelps and his crew had put forth that God wanted a soldier to die because his family was part of a minority group, the federal court ruling might have been different. Hate crime legislation was attached to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the legal system takes hateful action against minorities very seriously, as it should.

The Supreme Court is now hearing the Snyder-Phelps case, and the outcome is important for all Americans.

With the rise of the Internet, cyber-bullying and threatening behavior have become a plague upon the land. Kids are committing suicide because they are humiliated on the Net, and anyone can be targeted by sick individuals. Inflicting emotional distress on another human being is just a mouse click away.

I well understand the slippery-slope free speech argument being put forth by those who believe the federal judges did the right thing constitutionally. I make my living under the First Amendment, and I don't want the government telling me what I can and can't say. But evil is evil, and attacks are attacks. The Snyder family has a constitutional right to privacy and the pursuit of happiness. The despicable Phelps mob infringed on those rights.

SOURCE





Serbs don't think homosexuality is anything to be proud of

SEVERAL thousand Serbs marched in the capital Belgrade overnight in protest against a planned gay pride parade.

Participants ranged from families with children to young football supporters, some of whom gave fascist salutes and shouted for the death of homosexuals.

Police kept a close eye on the march from the city centre towards the parliament, organised by the extreme nationalist Dveri organisation, but there were no incidents.

"The state does nothing to help families yet it authorises this unnatural rally," Dveri spokesman Miroslav Parovic said. "We want it stopped."

Serbian gay organisations plan a parade in Belgrade today, having called off last year's after the government said it could not guarantee the security of the participants.

The first ever gay pride parade in Serbia in 2001 was broken up in violent clashes provoked by right-wing extremists.

The Serbian Orthodox Church on Friday spoke out against the parade but also warned against violence targeting participants.

Serbian Minister for Human Rights and Minorities Svetozar Ciplic has said he will take part in today's parade together with "at least two other ministers" and several members of parliament.

The representative of the European Commission in Belgrade, French diplomat Vincent Degert, has also announced his intention to join the parade.

In recent days anti-parade posters have appeared in Belgrade with the threat: "We are waiting for you."

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) warned Serbia on Wednesday that the gay parade would be a test of "the maturity of Serbian democracy".

SOURCE





One welfare reform that would make Britons happier... and richer

By Peter Hitchens

There's only one lasting, simple welfare reform package this country needs. It goes like this. First, an announcement that nine months from today, all benefits of any kind for new unmarried mothers should cease.

Note the word 'new'. Existing victims of one of the stupidest policies in human history should continue to get their handouts and subsidised homes until their children are grown. It is not their fault, or their children's, that they were misled by weak and wicked politicians into this way of life.

They should not be condemned or harassed. But this state-sponsored assault on marriage should stop. Just to emphasise the point, we should once again distinguish between those who end up as lone parents through no choice of their own and those who choose this state.

We should once again distinguish between those who end up as lone parents through no choice of their own and those who choose this state

We should once again distinguish between those who end up as lone parents through no choice of their own and those who choose this state

The ­Widow's Pension – scandalously abolished – should be reinstated. Deserted wives should likewise be offered proper ­support.

Next, the disastrous divorce reforms of the Sixties, which have blasted the lives of millions of deserted children, should be replaced by new rules that make it rather harder to break up a marriage than to end a car-leasing agreement.

And Parliament should overturn the disastrous judge-made laws which have, over the past 50 years, left divorced husbands with almost no rights at all. Within ten years we should be a happier, more orderly and peaceful society, and a much richer one too.

Depriving children of fathers, which seems to have been the policy of the so-called 'centre-left' and 'centre-right' for 40 years, has had a grim and painful effect on almost every aspect of our lives – and has affected almost every topic I touch on in this column.

The costs of trying to patch up the damage are immense, in grief and money. It is as if the whole country has been banging its head hard against a concrete wall for decades. It would be wonderful to stop, as well as being rational and kind. But of course it will not happen.

For all three parties have been taken over by Sixties liberals, who will never do this. Which is why no message of hope came out of the Tory Conference last week, and why the Prime Minister was reduced to attacks on a dead-and-­buried Labour Government, and to flogging his gassy, thought-free 'Big Society', under which we're all supposed to come home from work and the long commute, and then rush out to hold up the sky.

What was really wrong with the Tory Party's amateur dramatics was not the incompetence, though there was plenty of that; nor the dismissive callousness towards mothers who take the responsible decision to bring up their own children; nor the impracticable promises to 'clamp down' on a welfare system that is specifically designed to create more clients every day and will grow inexor­ably if this does not stop.

It was that it has turned its back forever on the married family (while tossing footling token gestures in its direction). And it has sold its soul – and the conservative people in this country – in return for the approval of the BBC and for the empty, pompous joys of office without power.

No wonder there were so few conservatives there, and no wonder Tory Party membership is shrivelling so quickly that the figures are a secret.

SOURCE




Gaza misrepresented


A Gaza shopping mall

It is lunchtime in the world's biggest prison camp, and I am enjoying a rather good caffe latte in an elegant beachfront cafe. Later I will visit the sparkling new Gaza Mall, and then eat an excellent beef stroganoff in an elegant restaurant.

Perhaps it is callous of me to be so self-indulgent, but I think I at least deserve the coffee. I would be having a stiff drink instead, if only the ultra-Islamic regime hadn't banned alcohol with a harsh and heavy hand.

Just an hour ago I was examining a 90ft-deep smuggling tunnel, leading out of the Gaza Strip and into Egypt. This excavation, within sight of Egyptian border troops who are supposed to stop such things, is – unbelievably – officially licensed by the local authority as a 'trading project' (registration fee £1,600).
Tale of two cities: Gaza's sparkling new shopping mall offers a stark contrast to the images of slums we are used to

It was until recently used for the import of cattle, chocolate and motorcycles (though not, its owner insists, for munitions or people) and at its peak earned more than £30,000 a day in fees.

But business has collapsed because the Israelis have relaxed many of their restrictions on imports, and most such tunnels are going out of business. While I was there I heard the whine of Israeli drones and the thunder of jet bombers far overhead...

Don't, please, accuse of me of complacency or denying the truth. I do not pretend to know everything about Gaza. I don't think it is a paradise, or remotely normal. But I do know for certain what I saw and heard.

There are dispiriting slums that should have been cleared decades ago, people living on the edge of subsistence. There is danger. And most of the people cannot get out.

But it is a lot more complicated, and a lot more interesting, than that. In fact, the true state of the Gaza Strip, and of the West Bank of the Jordan, is so full of paradoxes and surprises that most news coverage of the Middle East finds it easier to concentrate on the obvious, and leave out the awkward bits.

Which is why, in my view, politicians and public alike have been herded down a dead end that serves only propagandists and cynics, and leaves the people of this beautiful, important part of the world suffering needlessly.

For instance, our Prime Minister, David Cameron, recently fawned on his Islamist hosts in Turkey by stating Gaza was a 'prison camp'. This phrase is the official line of the well-funded Arab and Muslim lobby, who want to make sure Israel is seen by the world as a villainous oppressor....

But if you think Israel is the only problem, or that Israelis are the only oppressors hereabouts, think again. Realise, for a start, that Israel no longer rules Gaza. Its settlements are ruins.

No Israelis can be found inside its borders. And, before you say 'but Israel controls the Gaza border', look at a map. The strip's southern frontier – almost as hard to cross as the Israeli boundary – is with Egypt. And Cairo is as anxious as Israel to seal in the Muslim militants of Hamas.

Gaza was bombed on the day I arrived in retaliation for a series of rocket strikes on Israel, made by Arab militants. Those militants knew this would happen, but they launched their rockets anyway. Many Gazans hate them for this. One, whom I shall call Ibrahim, told me how he had begged these maniacs to leave his neighbourhood during Israel's devastating military attack nearly two years ago. His wife was close to giving birth.

He knew the Israelis would quickly seek out the launcher, and that these men would bring death down on his home. But the militants sneered at his pleading, so he shoved his wife into his car and fled.

Moments after he passed the first major crossroads, a huge Israeli bomb burst on the spot where his car had been. The diabolical power of modern munitions is still visible, in the ruins of what was once a government building.

It looks as if a giant has chewed and smashed it, and then come back and stamped on it. If you can imagine trying to protect a pregnant woman from such forces, then you can begin to understand how complex it is living here, where those who claim to defend you bring death to your door.

For the Islamist rocket-firers are also the government here, supported by Iran and others who care more for an abstract cause than they do for real people. They claim that their permanent war with Israel is for the benefit of the Palestinian Arabs. But is it?

Human beings will always strive for some sort of normal life. They do this even when bombs are falling and demagogues raging. Even when, as in Gaza, there is no way out and morality patrols sweep through restaurants in search of illicit beer and women smoking in public or otherwise affronting the 14th Century values of Hamas.

So I won't give the name of the rather pleasant establishment where young women, Islamic butterflies mocking the fanatics' strict dress code with bright make-up and colourful silken hijabs, chattered as they inhaled apple-scented smoke from their water-pipes.

Their menfolk, nearby, watched football on huge, flat-screen televisions. Nor will I say where I saw the Gazan young gathering for beach barbecues beneath palm-leaf umbrellas.

Of course this way of life isn't typical. But it exists, and it shows the 'prison camp' designation is a brain-dead over-simplification. If it is wrong for the rich to live next door to the desperate – and we often assume this when wecriticise Israel – then what about Gaza's wealthy, and its Hamas rulers?

They tolerate this gap, so they are presumably as blameworthy as the Israelis whose comfortable homes overlook chasms of poverty.

Then there is the use of the word 'siege'. Can anyone think of a siege in human history, from Syracuse to Leningrad, where the shops of the besieged city have been full of Snickers bars and Chinese motorbikes, and where European Union and other foreign aid projects pour streams of cash (often yours) into the pockets of thousands? Once again, the word conceals more than it reveals.

In Gaza's trapped, unequal society, a wealthy and influential few live in magnificent villas with sea views and their own generators to escape the endless power cuts.

Gaza also possesses a reasonably well-off middle class, who spend their cash in a shopping mall – sited in Treasure Street in Gaza City, round the corner from another street that is almost entirely given over to shops displaying washing machines and refrigerators.

Siege? Not exactly. What about Gaza's 'refugee camps'. The expression is misleading. Most of those who live in them are not refugees, but the children and grandchildren of those who fled Israel in the war of 1948.

All the other refugees from that era – in India and Pakistan, the Germans driven from Poland and the Czech lands, not to mention the Jews expelled from the Arab world – were long ago resettled. Unbelievably, these people are still stuck in insanitary townships, hostages in a vast struggle kept going by politicians who claim to care about them. These places are not much different from the poorer urban districts of Cairo, about which nobody, in the Arab world or the West, has much to say.

It is not idle to say that these 'camps' should have been pulled down years ago, and their inhabitants rehoused. It can be done. The United Arab Emirates, to their lasting credit, have paid for a smart new housing estate with a view of the Mediterranean.

It shows what could happen if the Arab world cared as much as it says it does about Gaza. Everyone in Gaza could live in such places, at a cost that would be no more than small change in the oil-rich Arab world's pocket.

But the propagandists, who insist that one day the refugees will return to their lost homes, regard such improvements as acceptance that Israel is permanent – and so they prefer the squalor, for other people.

Those who rightly condemn the misery of the camps should ask themselves whose fault it really is. As so often in the Arab world, the rubbish-infested squalor of the streets conceals clean, private quarters, not luxurious and sometimes basic, but out of these places emerge each day huge numbers of scrubbed, neatly-uniformed children, on their way to schools so crammed that they have two shifts.

I wish I was sure these young people were being taught the principles of human brotherhood and co-existence. But I doubt it. On a wall in a street in central Gaza, a mural – clearly displayed with official approval – shows an obscene caricature of an Israeli soldier with a dead child slung from his bayonet.

I might add that an Arab intellectual, sitting in a Gaza cafe, recalled for me the happy days when Gazan women used to wear short skirts (now they all wear shrouds and veils) and you could get a beer by the beach.

But perhaps best of all was the comment of the Arab Israeli who mourned for 'the good old days before we had peace'. It may well be that no solution to the problem of Israel is possible, and that it will all end, perhaps decades from now, in a nuclear fireball.

But if outside politicians, more interested in their reputations than in the lives of Arabs and Israelis, would only stop their search for a final settlement, might it be that people – left to their own devices – might find a way of living together, a way that was imperfect, but which no longer involved human beings being dissolved into hunks of flying flesh by high explosive?

More HERE

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

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

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

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

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



9 October, 2010

Under "Post-racial" Obama, Race Relations Rot

Are we united yet? Far from it:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 36% of voters now say relations between blacks and whites are getting better. That's down from 62% in July of last year at the height of the controversy involving a black Harvard professor and a white policeman.

As readers will recall, in that case our "post-racial" president, who was elected largely for his skin color and who made his hatred of Caucasians public knowledge in an autobiography, acted stupidly by siding with a race-baiting moonbat against the police.

African-Americans are much more pessimistic than whites. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of whites think black-white race relations are getting better, but just 13% of blacks agree.

Yet…

Interestingly, 59% of African-American voters continue to believe the country is moving in the right direction, a view shared by just 27% of whites.

You could almost get the impression that the Manchurian Moonbat is not expected to get along with Whitey, but to tear down his world.

Every time a liberal whips out the race card, the situation gets worse:

Confidence in the nation's course among African-Americans soared after Barack Obama's election. But then several prominent Democrats, perhaps most notably former President Jimmy Carter, suggested that opposition to the president's health care plan was motivated in part by racism. Only 12% of all voters agreed in September of last year, but among blacks, 27% felt that way and 48% were undecided.

The only way to end racial tension is to integrate and assimilate — which stands in direct contradiction to the liberal strategy of balkanization through "multiculturalism." The more power liberals hold, the worse race relations will inevitably get. What did anyone really expect?

SOURCE





Pregnant Muslim ordered to remove her veil in British court because magistrates can't see her face

A pregnant Muslim woman was ordered by magistrates to remove her veil while she gave evidence against her violent ex-partner yesterday. Georgina Richards, 36, initially refused for religious reasons but reluctantly agreed when magistrates said they might not accept her evidence if they could not see her 'facial expressions'.

The case at Leicester Magistrates Court was held up for over an hour while magistrates agreed to hear her evidence from behind a screen.

Chairman of the bench Lawrence Faulkner told her: 'We need to see a person’s facial expressions to assess the evidence they are giving. 'If you refuse to remove your veil, we may not be able to accept your evidence.'

Miss Richards, who is heavily pregnant, gave evidence against her ex-partner Ismail Mangera, 30, from behind a screen in the courtroom.

Mr Mangera was found guilty of punching Miss Richards in the face and scrawling abuse on her front door.

But after the hearing, Miss Richards hit out at the magistrates for forcing her to remove her veil. She said: 'I was a bit unhappy that he told me to take my veil off. 'They put screens up next to me but I didn’t really want to do it. 'But I thought the case would be dropped if I didn’t take it off. 'It just made me feel uncomfortable. They wanted to see the expression on my face but I don’t think it really matters, I think I could have done it with my veil on.' 'Now I just feel relieved that I’ve said what I’ve got to say.'

Miss Richards told the court her religion states she should not remove her veil in front of men in public.

Magistrates heard that Mr Mangera attacked Miss Richards, mother to three of the couple’s children and eight months pregnant with their fourth, between April 1 and April 30.

The magistrates warned Mangera he was facing jail. Sentencing was deferred until October 20 to allow a probation report to be produced.

SOURCE





The rise of Britain's 'Shameless generation' after drop in court cases under Labour government

The horrifying scale of benefit fraud by the ‘Shameless’ generation can be revealed by the Daily Mail today. During Labour’s final two years in power, prosecutions for false claims slumped and overpayments soared. The figures come during a week in which the Tories pledged to clamp down on abuse of the welfare system by introducing a £500-a-week payments cap.

Jeremy Hunt, the party’s Culture Secretary, added to the controversy by suggesting the workshy should stop having children if they could not afford them.

Now Freedom of Information requests have found that prosecutions of benefit cheats have fallen by 11 per cent in the past year, while cases of overpayments have gone up by 13 per cent. The statistics make a mockery of the anti-fraud slogan at the Department for Work and Pensions: ‘It’s not if we catch you; it’s when.’

Cases of overpayment soared to 499,204 in 2009/10 compared with 439,966 the year before. But only a tiny number of the fraudsters are taken to court. In 2009/10, just 7,765 cases led to prosecutions compared with 8,701 in 2008/9. The amount of money recovered has risen over the past year from £280million to £294.4million but by far less than the estimated amount of overpayment.

Last night, Emma Boon of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘These figures show the dire state of our welfare system. Taxpayers’ money has been leaking out of the cracks at HMRC, with overpayments rising at an alarming rate. ‘Their problems have to be addressed immediately to stop our money that’s meant to help the poor simply being wasted.’

Philip Hollobone, Tory MP for Kettering, said: ‘These figures are a sad indictment of Britain’s benefits system as a result of the mismanagement of the Labour government.’

Welfare reform dominated the past week’s Conservative conference, with Chancellor George Osborne coming under attack for cuts to child benefit which penalised stay-at-home mums. He has proposed a £26,000 a year cap on welfare payments – in line with the average take home wage.

Lord Steel, Liberal leader from 1976 to 1988, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he sympathised with plans to tackle welfare dependency. ‘All MPs have had people come into their surgeries who say their next door neighbours are living off the state,’ he said. ‘When I was an MP there were people who used to deliberately get themselves pregnant in order to jump the housing queue – and that is reprehensible both from the point of view of the parents and the children.’

SOURCE






Muslims can riot over disrespect for their religion but Christians will be arrested for protesting disrespect for their religion

A Montana woman has been charged with criminal mischief after allegedly taking a crowbar to a controversial art museum display in Colorado that critics say portrays Jesus Christ receiving oral sex from another man.

Kathleen Folden, 56, of Kalispell, Mont., was arrested Wednesday and accused of damaging the the 12-panel lithograph, "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals."

The piece, on display since Sept. 11 at the tax-funded Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland, Colo., includes several images of Jesus, including one in which he appears to be receiving oral sex from a man as the word "orgasm" appears beside Jesus’ head.

It has triggered protests and even calls to police by critics asking for an investigation into whether it violates a Colorado law that protects children from obscenity, the Loveland Reporter Herald reported. The city attorney determined it did not.

Witnesses told the Reporter-Herald that Folden entered the Loveland Museum Gallery, used a crowbar to break glass over the art and ripped the print.

Mark Michaels, an area art dealer, told Denver's KUSA-TV that he tried to stop her adding that the woman screamed: "How can you desecrate my Lord?"

Police spokesman Andy Hiller said the work by Stanford University professor Enrique Chagoya has a tear in the panel with the depiction of Christ. The piece is part of an 82-print exhibit by 10 artists who have worked with Colorado printer Bud Shark.

Chagoya says he's sad that his book and the First Amendment were attacked.

"Should we as artists, or any free-thinking people, have to be subjected to fear of violent attacks for expressing our sincere concerns? I made a collage with a comic book and an illustration of a religious icon to express the corruption of something precious and spiritual," Chagoya told FoxNews.com. "There is no nudity, or genitals, or explicit sexual contact shown in the image. There is a dressed woman, a religious icon's head, a man showing his tongue, and a skull of a Pope in the upper right corner of the controversial page. I did not make a picture of Christ. I used symbols as one would use words in a sentence to critique corruption of the sacred by religious institutions."

Those institutions, he says, need to be criticized when they get corrupted and people have every right to dislike his criticism, just as he has a right to express it.

"Violence is the opposite of what Jesus, Mohammed or Buddha taught. I am amazed that some of the followers don't adhere to the teachings. Agree to disagree and love thy neighbor," he said.

Police said the incident was the first disturbance since protesters began gathering this week outside the city-owned museum about 50 miles north of Denver. About 100 people packed the Loveland City Council meeting Tuesday night to support and oppose removing Chagoya's work.

The council decided to leave the art in place.

Chagoya says he hopes people realize that "only totalitarian societies are ruled by extreme rules."

"Do we want to live as if under Stalin or Hitler who censored not only the arts but all levels of thinking?," he said. "This is America, but I don't take my rights for granted. I know they can easily be taken away by hate and extremism. Lets exchange ideas not insults, or labels. We all want this world to be a better place to live in, not a place where we live in fear of angry disagreements that will take us nowhere."

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



8 October, 2010

Feminist anti-Israel activists become "comfort women" for Arab men

A reasonable penalty for letting hate rule your brain

Two activists have exposed a disturbing phenomenon that they say is an open secret within the “peace camp”: female “peace” activists are routinely harassed and raped by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria with whom they have come to identify. They say the phenomenon has gotten worse lately and that many foreign women end up as wives of local Arabs against their will, but cannot escape their new homes.

Roni Aloni Sedovnik, a feminist activist, penned an article in News1 – an independent website run by respected investigative reporter Yoav Yitzchak – under the heading “The Left's Betrayal of Female Peace Activists Who were Sexually Assaulted.”

“A nauseous atrocity has been going on for a long time behind the scenes at the leftists' demonstration at Bil'in, Naalin and Sheikh Jarrah [Shimon HaTzaddik],” she writes. “A dark secret that threatens to smash the basic ideological values upon which the demand to end the occupation of the Territories rests.”

It turns out, she explains, that when female peace activists from Israel and abroad come out to Judea and Samaria and demonstrate against the Israeli “occupation,” they are assaulted sexually by the Arab men whom they have come to help. These are not isolated incidents, Aloni-Sedovnik stresses. Rather, this is an “ongoing and widespread” phenomenon that includes verbal and physical abuse. She accuses the 'peace' camp of purposely covering up the trend so as not to offend “the Palestinians and their heritage, which sees women as sexual objects.”

Media cover-up

Aloni-Sedovnik cites two specific cases which she has knowledge of – one is a case of rape and another is “severe sexual harassment.” The attackers in both cases, she stresses, were familiar with the victims and knew that they were “peace activists.”

The rape occurred several months ago in the village of Umm Salmona, near Bethlehem. The victim, an American activist, wanted to press charges but leftist activists put pressure on her not to do so, so as not to damage the struggle against the 'occupation.'

The second case involved an Israeli activist who took part in the demonstrations at Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, where the High Court ruled that Jewish families may move into homes that they have owned for generations. This woman filed a complaint with the police but retracted it after “severe and unfair pressure” from the demonstrations' organizers, according to Aloni-Sedovnik. Furthermore, the organizers appealed to demonstrators to dress modestly when they come to the Arab neighborhoods and suggested that they wear head scarves.

Aloni-Sedovnik accuses the Israeli media of complicity in the cover-up.

“How is it that we do not hear the voice of the radical feminists who repeat, day and night, that occupation is occupation, and it does not matter if it is a nation that is doing the subjugation, or a man who is subjugating a woman?

"It appears that there is a gap between the radical-leftist feminist theory about the active resistance to the occupation of the Territories, and the stuttering self-annulment in the face of the violent conquest of women.”

The Umm Salmona case was reported in Haaretz as an attempted rape but does not seem to have made it beyond the blog pages.

Foreign women raped and subjugated

Earlier this year, a blogger and literature buff named Yehudah Bello, who writes in various venues about history and the theory of evolution, wrote a blog post with the striking title: “The Female Leftist Activists are Raped Day after Day, Night after Night.” Bello is no ultra-nationalist, and he supports the creation of a PA state – a fact which makes his claims all the more believable.

Most female leftist European activists, writes Bello, are brainwashed in their youth into hating Israel, and then sent directly into Judea and Samaria, without spending a single night in Tel Aviv, lest they see civilian Israeli society for themselves and find that they like it. They are whisked off to Shechem, Jenin and other PA towns and housed in Arab educational or cultural facilities, or private homes. Local Arab girls are sent to befriend them and they have no choice but to trust them.

It is thus easy, explains Bello, “to carry out a sexual crime against a foreign girl, in her first days away from her family, in a place where no police have ever visited. And this is what happens, and has happened.”

"I was told of such rape cases by women who are not Jewish: a female European leftist activist, a female Red Cross volunteer and a young Arab woman from Yafo,” he says. He says that he met these women when he carried out IDF reserve duty, and met them afterward as well. “They told me what goes on there, in the Palestinian villages, far from any prying eye.”

"These are not just cases of rape carried out to satisfy lust,” he writes. “Usually, they are carried out systematically in order to make the girl pregnant and then take her as a wife – after she converts to Islam, of course. We know about this system from the stories of women who underwent a similar process within Israel and escaped to Europe. But it is hard to escape from the Palestinian territories. Sometimes these women – some of whom are no longer young – are never allowed to leave their homes unaccompanied, in order to forestall their escape.”

If someone were to compare the list of foreign female activists who enter Judea and Samaria to the list of those who leave, Bello claims, the magnitude of the phenomenon would be proven. “Everyone knows about it, but no one dares talk about it. The Palestinians have been turned into martyrs. In the Middle Eastern television channels, IDF soldiers are represented as the brutal rapists, who rape Palestinian women.”

New Israel Fund involvement

The reports by Aloni-Sedovnik and Bello are of particular interest because feminist groups have been spearheading leftist activism in Israel for many years. According to Gila Svirsky, the former director of the New Israel Fund in Israel and founder of NIF-sponsored Women's Coalition for Peace, “women’s peace organizations, known collectively as the Israeli women’s peace movement, became the most vibrant and persistent part of the peace camp in Israel.” These groups espouse an ideology which equates militarism (by Israelis) with male domination of women. Far from being a fringe element, leftist-feminists of this ilk are a dominant force in the Israeli academic world, the press, the Knesset and the judicial system.

SOURCE





British police are ordered to protect 'Doggers' -- homosexuals engaging in public sex

Britain sure has lost it

Police have been ordered to stop anyone taking in part in illegal outdoor sex being abused or verbally taunted as it can cause them to suffer post traumatic stress.

An extraordinary new Hate Crime Guidance Manual has been handed to officers telling them to arrest anyone suspected of committing a hate crime against those engaged in ‘dogging’.

Although it notes that outdoor sex can have an ‘impact on the quality of life of people using these locations for leisure pursuits’ - for example dog walkers and tourists - the rights of those cottaging, cruising or dogging must be taken into account by officers.

It states that even though ‘outdoor sex is unlawful’, people who take part in it still have rights which protect them from becoming victims of hate crime.

The manual, issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers of Scotland last week, states that people who take part in open-air sex are ‘more susceptible to hate crime’ and can suffer ‘post traumatic stress and depression’ if they are abused, Police Review revealed.

The 60-page guide states: 'The issues surrounding public sex environments can be complex and consequently provide a challenge for the police. 'Whilst complaints regarding consensual public sex must be considered and responded to, it must also be noted that people engaging in such activity are potential targets for hate crime perpetrators.'

It states that doggers can be ‘reluctant to report victimisation in outdoor sex environments’ and says this is ‘due to a misconception that the police will primarily be interested in why they were there, as opposed to tackling hate or prejudice motivated crime’.

It goes on to say that hate crime can have a ‘lasting impact on individual victims’, adding that ‘crime targeted at an individual’s core identity also has the potential to undermine entire communities and damage community confidence in the police’.

The guide adds: 'Research has shown that any victim of crime can suffer symptoms of depression, anger, anxiety and post traumatic stress. 'Victims of non-biased crime can experience a decrease in these symptoms within two years (but) victims of bias, or hate crime, may need as long as five years to overcome their ordeal.'

In 2008, the then deputy chief constable of Lancashire Police Michael Cunningham - now the Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police - issued guidance cautioning officers against ‘knee-jerk’ reactions when dealing with doggers and saying they should only be prosecuted as a ‘last resort’.

The most recent changes were made to the ‘Managing Public Sex Environments’ policy last month, and top brass say the policy has been ‘completely re-written’ following consultation with relevant groups and ‘new Association of Chief Police Officer guidance’.

It states that the new policy applies to all cops dealing with ‘public sex environments’, adding that the policy aims to ‘improve our effectiveness and the quality of service provided by the police service when policing public sex environments’ to ensure a ‘consistent, well managed, proportionate and professional approach to public sex environments’ is taken by officers.

The manual says that ‘human rights of all citizens’ must be protected and that the policy covers ‘any open space, public or private that is habitually used for the purpose of engaging in consensual same sex and opposite sex, sexual activity’, including public toilets.

It states that previous policing methods had ‘adversely affected’ the relationship between cops and people having outdoor sex and that the old methods ‘discouraged users from reporting crime to police’, leading to many unreported robberies, assaults and verbal abuse of doggers.

Les Gray, the chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, told Police Review magazine today: 'I do not believe that our officers require a 60-page booklet to tell them that we should carry out our duties without fear, favour, malice or ill will. 'No matter what the circumstances our officers will always do their upmost to prevent crime in the first instance and where a crime has been committed assist the victim and endeavour to detect the culprit.

'Just because someone engages in unusual or different activities it does not preclude them from the protection of the law. 'By the same token it doesn’t mean that they will get more protection by doing so.'

One Kent officer, who did not want to be named, said: 'So now we are being told not just to turn a blind eye to public indecency, we are being told to arrest anyone who has anything bad to say against people taking part in outdoor sex.

'It’s getting to the stage that people who break the law have more rights than the normal man or woman on the street, and as for them suffering from post traumatic stress, what about the people who witness these exhibitions and are shocked by it? What about their rights.'

Hugh McKinney, of the National Family Campaign, said: 'There is a good reason that we have laws against these types of sexual behaviour in public, namely that they are deemed to be beyond what is acceptable to most reasonable people. 'Is it too much for us to expect the police to enforce the law? After all, they’re the only ones who can.'

Chief Constable Ian Latimer, of Scotland’s Northern Constabulary - which patrols the Scottish Highlands - said: 'Hate crime divides our communities and has a devastating effect on victims, their family members and the wider community.

'The manual, developed in consultation with partner agencies and victim support charities gathers best practice and provides officers with guidance on how recognise and investigate hate crime to secure the desired outcome and results for all parties involved.'

Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 those who take part in ‘dogging’, where couples meet up for exhibitionist outdoor sex, and cottaging, where men meet for sex in public lavatories, face arrest for outraging public decency, voyeurism and exposure.

SOURCE




Cosseted British bureaucrats to lose some of their privileges

Millions of public sector staff face working until they are in their 70s to fund gold-plated pension schemes branded 'inherently unfair' by a hard-hitting report, it was claimed last night.

Labour former minister Lord Hutton said state workers – who can currently retire as young as 55 – will be forced to pay more and receive less on retirement. He gave ministers the green light to demand extra pension contributions from staff from as early as April. And his interim report also pronounced the end of final salary schemes – sparking threats of strikes from the unions.

Public sector pensioners could suffer some of the pain that their counterparts in the private sector are already facing. Critics say there is pensions apartheid between the public and private sectors.

Lord Hutton was asked to investigate the public sector pensions crisis by the Coalition. Taxpayers are currently liable for between £770billion and £1trillion in payouts and the gap between annual employee contributions and the promised rewards is running at £10billion a year.

Lord Hutton said that when he published his final recommendations next spring it is his ‘intention’ to suggest that the retirement age should rise in line with life expectancy projections. He said it was ‘logical’ to bring the public sector retirement age into line with the state pension age, which the Government has already said will rise to 68.

Lord Hutton will publish a formula linking public sector retirement age and longevity to ensure civil servants don’t spend nearly 30 years living on pensions.

He said he was ‘nervous’ about fixing a new retirement date for Britain’s six million public sector workers ‘to a definite age because longevity is marching ahead’. He added: ‘I think we’ve got to look at this as a matter of urgency.’

In 1841, someone who reached the age of 60 could expect to live to 74. Today, they will typically die at the age of 84. By 2055, a 65-year-old female public sector worker is predicted to live until she is nearly 95. A man will typically get to 92.

John Prior, of pensions firm Punter Southall, said he predicts the normal retirement age will get to ‘70 at least’. He said: ‘Just because a policeman can’t be on the beat at 55 does not mean that they cannot be doing some other job.’

In a further blow for state workers, they will be forced to start paying more of their salary into a pension scheme, which many currently get virtually for free.

Lord Hutton said the low-paid, understood to be those earning around £21,000, should be protected from higher payments. The Armed Forces, who do not pay a penny into their pension, will also be ring-fenced in the short-term.

But Lord Hutton said there is ‘a strong case’ to increase other contributions for a pension scheme which he yesterday branded as totally unaffordable – and getting more expensive every day.

In his 170-page report, he said that Britain has no choice but to change State workers’ pension schemes, or leave future taxpayers with an unaffordable burden.

He said: ‘It is my clear view that the figures in this report make it plain that the status quo is not tenable.’

That decision gives Chancellor George Osborne political cover to demand higher payments from state workers during the public spending review later this month. He could raise £1billion for every 1 per cent he adds to the payments. Mr Osborne said the report was ‘impressive’ and called for a ‘consensus’ on how to solve the crisis.

In a third blow, the report spells the end for lucrative final salary pensions, which promise to pay workers a percentage of their earnings on retirement. Lord Hutton said they are ‘inherently unfair’ and must be scrapped and replaced with cheaper alternatives, such as a ‘career average’ scheme or one which abandons the link to earnings entirely.

The report lays bare the bleak facts about public sector pensions in a country where less than a third of private sector workers get a company pension. Public sector workers are able to look forward to an average workplace pension of £7,841 – but the majority of private sector workers get nothing.

The report also lifts the lid on the gold-plated retirements of an exclusive bunch of State workers. Nearly 3,000 get a pension of ‘at least £67,000’ a year, with eight in ten of them working for the Health Service. A further 34,252 receive a pension worth ‘at least £37,000’.

By comparison, the majority of single pensioners in Britain, mostly retired private sector workers and stay-at-home mothers, are being forced to survive on pension income of ‘less than £27’ a day.

Lord Hutton’s plans triggered outrage among unions and are likely to lead to strikes. Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union, said: ‘This attack on the people who make this country tick will spark a furious backlash and will drive millions on to the streets in French-style protests to stop the great pensions robbery.’

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said the report represents a ‘grossly unfair’ attack on State workers ‘drawn up on behalf of a Cabinet of millionaires’.

More HERE





Saudi prince accused in brutal murder of servant finds he's not above the law in Britain

This story is instructive on many levels. First, this Saudi prince likely figured he could beat the murder rap with a few phone calls, intervention from the embassy, and a quick flight back to Riyadh. In other words, he was acting above the law, with his servant entirely subject to his whims, as is clearly shown in an assault caught on surveillance camera at the link to the story below.

Secondly, regarding the "sexual aspect" the report details, as demonstrated by the type of injuries found on the servant's body, one must point out that the consequence of homosexuality under Sharia is often death, in potentially macabre, imaginative ways:

"Gay people should be thrown head first off high buildings and if not killed on hitting the ground, they should be then stoned to death." - Minhaj al-Muslim (The Way of the Muslim)

And Muhammad himself said: "If you find anyone doing as Lot's people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done" (Sunan Abu Dawud 38.4447).

At least, that is the fate that threatens those in Muslim countries who happen not to be princes, or wealthy, or well-connected.

The aforementioned video footage, as well as the coroner's report, suggest the abuse had been going on for some time. Had the servant died in Saudi Arabia, accounts of his death may never have seen the light of day. It would be entirely the prince's word against his. And if he so chose, or found it necessary, the prince could have offered diyya, or blood money prescribed according to Islamic law, in order to get away scot-free.

But in Britain, justice can actually be done for the servant. And so, this case underscores by contrast how Sharia stacks the deck against justice for the poor, marginalized, and vulnerable, who bear the brunt of Sharia's rule more heavily. That includes both the victims, and those accused who cannot buy or schmooze their way out of trouble.

"'Sexual element' in Saudi prince's servant killing," from BBC News, October 4:

A Saudi prince murdered his servant in an attack which had a "sexual element", the Old Bailey has heard.

Bandar Abdulaziz, 32, was found beaten and strangled in the Landmark Hotel, Marylebone, central London, on 15 February.

The court was told Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud had carried out several assaults on the victim before he died.

Mr al Saud, 34, admits manslaughter but denies murder and one count of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

The jury has been asked to decide whether he is guilty of manslaughter or murder.

When the body was found the prince claimed his aide had been attacked and robbed three weeks before his death.

But the jury was told Mr al Saud carried out the killing - and injuries including bite marks to Mr Abdulaziz's face showed the "ferocity of the attack to which he had been subjected".

The prince has claimed he was "friends and equals" with his servant and denied being gay.

Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said: "The evidence establishes quite conclusively that he is either gay or that he has homosexual tendencies.

"It is clear that his abuse of Bandar was not confined simply to physical beatings.

"There is clear evidence, over and above the bite marks, that there was also a sexual element to his mistreatment of the victim."

The court heard that the prince and his aide had been staying together at the hotel since 20 January as part of an extended holiday.

Mr Abdulaziz's body was found with blood on the pillow and the defendant appeared "shocked and upset", the court heard.

Mr al Saud told police officers they had been drinking in the hotel bar until the early hours of the morning before returning to the room and that when he woke at about 1500 GMT he could not rouse the victim.

The prince had tried to clean up some of the blood and wash some of Mr Abdulaziz's bloodstained clothing, Mr Laidlaw said.

'Sexual connotation'

Bloodstains found in the room were "consistent with the victim having been the subject of a series of separate assaults before he was killed", the jury heard.

Asked by police about the injuries suffered by the victim, Mr al Saud said he had been robbed three weeks earlier on Edgware Road, in central London.

But CCTV footage showed the prince attacking his servant in the lift of the hotel on two separate occasions in previous weeks and kicking him outside a restaurant on the night of his death.

The post-mortem examination showed Mr Abdulaziz had suffered heavy blows to his head and face, leaving his left eye closed and swollen, his lips split and his teeth chipped and broken.

There were also injuries to his neck, ears and internal organs, bleeding to the brain and a rib fracture.

"There were bite marks to his cheeks, which had 'an obvious sexual connotation," Mr Laidlaw said.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



7 October, 2010

Racist black judge

He judged a man by the colour of his skin rather than by the content of his character

A black judge from western Pennsylvania rejected a plea agreement for a man accused of fighting with police during a traffic stop, saying it was "a ridiculous plea that only goes to white boys."

The plea agreement was for a sentence of three months probation. Allegheny County Judge Joseph Williams said on Tuesday that a black defendant in that situation would not have been treated as leniently.

In court, Williams told Assistant District Attorney Brian Catanzarite that he "for some reason comes up with I think ridiculous pleas whenever it's a young white guy," according to The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "I'm just telling you what my observation is. If this had been a black kid who did the same thing, we wouldn't be talking about three months' probation."

Catanzarite responded that he was standing in for another prosecutor and didn't broker the plea deal. "Now that the court has essentially called me a racist, I think that's unfair. I don't make offers based on race. I make offers based on facts," Catanzarite said, according to the Tribune-Review.

Williams later recused himself from the case, and a white judge accepted the plea agreement for 24-year-old Jeffery McGowan.

The defendant, who had no criminal record, agreed to plead guilty to disorderly conduct. He had faced charges including aggravated assault.

Williams' secretary on Wednesday told The Associated Press the judge does not give interviews. The Allegheny County district attorney's office did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Mike Manko, a spokesman for the district attorney's office, told the Tribune-Review the plea deal was appropriate and agreed to by the officer, who was not injured. "Negotiated pleas are never based on the race of a particular defendant but rather on the behavior of the defendant and the facts associated with that behavior," Manko told the newspaper.

"The assistant district attorneys who handled this plea on behalf of the commonwealth have outstanding reputations, and we firmly stand behind their integrity and the integrity of all of our prosecutors."

SOURCE





Unemployed British man forced to attend 'Back To Work' seminar instead of real job interview to avoid losing benefits

After losing his job, David Sharp was delighted to have a second interview for a sales post and was confident about winning the role. But he claims he had to pull out of the interview thanks to bizarre rules that meant he could not miss a 'Back To Work' class on the same day. Job centre staff warned Mr Sharp, 33, from Huyton, Merseyside, that if he missed the seminar he would lose his benefit money.

Faced with the possibility of having neither a new job nor his dole money, the former bingo caller was forced to cancel his interview. Mr Sharp said: 'I had only been signing on for a few weeks when I got in the running for a business and marketing role in town. 'I did well, but the second interview was at the same time as a course at the Huyton job centre.

'I rang the national 0845 telephone number and was given an ultimatum. Either I attended the course or my benefits would be cancelled. 'I tried to change the interview and they said 'no'. I then offered to show documented proof of my interview to the job centre, but that was no good.'

He added: 'I went on the course and it was pretty mundane, about how to get in touch with employers all stuff I had already done to get the interview. 'I am disappointed with Job Centre Plus. They should have been doing a lot more to help me. 'They stopped me getting a job to put me on a 'Back To Work' course. It was very counterproductive and now I am still unemployed.'

A spokesman for the Department for work and pensions said Mr Sharp had not spoken directly to the Job Centre Plus in Huyton. But they could not rule out the 33-year-old was given incorrect advice over the phone.

SOURCE






West is being 'outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised' by Islamic extremism, warns Blair

The West is being 'outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised' by violent Islamic extremism, Tony Blair has warned.

The former prime minister said that there had been a failure to challenge the 'narrative' that Islam was oppressed by the West which was fuelling extremism around the world.

He said too many people accepted the extremists' analysis that the military actions taken by the West following the 9/11 attacks were directed at countries because they were Muslim and that it supported Israel because Israelis were Jews while Palestinians were Muslims.

'We should wake up to the absurdity of our surprise at the prevalence of this extremism', he said

'Look at the funds it receives. Examine the education systems that succour it. And then measure, over the years, the paucity of our counter-attack in the name of peaceful co-existence. We have been outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised'.

Speaking last night in New York to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Mr Blair warned that it was impossible to defeat extremism 'without defeating the narrative that nurtures it'.

Moderate Muslims who believed in co-existence and tolerance were, he said, being undermined by the unwillingness of the West to take on the extremists' arguments.

'We think if we sympathise with the narrative - that essentially this extremism has arisen as a result, partly, of our actions - we meet it halfway, we help the modernisers to be more persuasive', he said. 'We don't. We indulge it and we weaken them. Worse, a reaction springs up amongst our people that we are pandering to this narrative and they start to resent Muslims as a whole'.

Mr Blair's warning comes as the French issued their most extreme warning in recent years about the dangers of visiting Britain, saying a terrorist attack is ‘very likely’. A dramatic statement on the website of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs adds that visitors need to exercise ‘extreme vigilance’. This is especially so in world famous sites like London’s Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, and on the capital’s public transport system.

While Britain and the USA have already warned people to be careful when travelling in Europe, the French advice is by far the most extreme to date. It invokes the 1990s and early 2000s when Gallic secret agents regularly monitored suspected Islamic radicals in a city referred to by the French as ‘Londonistan’.

The statement was issued after terrorist suspect killed in a drone attack in Pakistan last month was identified as a British man tasked with leading an Al Qaeda group in the UK.

Last week, security agents in France, Britain and Germany warned Al Qaeda terrorists were planning a Mumbai-style atrocity in Europe. The alert was sparked after Ahmad Sidiqi, an Afghan informant said to have known Mohammed Atta, mastermind of the 9/11 2001 attacks, told US interrogators of the chilling plot.

Sidiqi said Ilyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda commander linked to the 2008 attacks in Mumbai in India that left 174 people dead, had told him that teams had already been sent to Europe to launch similar assaults.

The United States and Britain warned their citizens on Sunday of an increased risk of terrorist attacks in Europe, with Washington saying al Qaeda might target transport infrastructure.

Britain raised the terrorism alert level in its advice for travellers to Germany and France to ‘high from ‘general,’ while leaving the threat level at home unchanged at ‘severe’.

SOURCE






Why rip off the rich?

This fracas about letting the Bush tax cut expire for those making more than the arbitrary amount of $250K per year is bizarre. Never mind for now that the entire system of taxation in a bona fide free country is criminal–not different, in principle, from a system of serfdom or involuntary servitude. (Taxation had its place in the same systems that were home to these other types of bondage!) But this unrestrained hatred for those who earn more than $250K is rank bigotry, not different from racial, gender and ethnic prejudice at heart.

Well, yes there is a difference, since when men and women become wealthy, this isn’t unavoidable as when they are black or women or from a given background into which they were born. But neither is becoming wealthy something for which anyone ought to be blamed and punished.

It is, after all, no longer the case that behind every great fortune there must be a great crime. That used to be generally true enough when wealth was obtained primarily via conquest, looting, and robbery perpetrated by armies and navies. One of the great discoveries of Adam Smith, the father of modern economic science, is that wealth is much more efficiently created without such methods, by protecting the equal liberty of everyone to produce and trade. Because we are often so radically different from one another, we can easily find opportunities to gain from others while they are also gaining from us. This is one of the benefits of specialization. Understanding this much should be sufficient to reject the notion that anyone needs to be put in servitude to other people so that these others can find what they need and want. A genuine, unbriddled free market place makes that possible, one in which the government with its monopoly on physical force does not try to cherry pick who gets what and how much and when.

Apart, however, of the irrationality of interfering in people’s freedom of production and exchange, there is in this debate about extending the Bush tax cuts to those who make more than $250K a viciousness that should be entirely unwelcome among civilized men and women. This enviousness that many people harbor and which is then taken advantage of by so many politicians–and fueled by their academic instigators such as The New York Times columnist and Princeton University economist Paul Krugman–is neanderthal, barbaric, totally unbecoming of people who live in a complex society and who have only the faintest idea of how others earn their resources. To have cultivated this envy toward those who are economically better off is really no different from cultivating it toward those who have superior talents or other assets in their lives, such as good health and good looks. To pick on such people is totally unjust and pointless.

Some, of course, try to peddle the notion that the very rich really owe it all to society–which is to say, to politicians and law enforcement–as if it were the referees at a game who scored points! But that is a fabrication and rationalization aimed to sooth one’s guilty conscience for harboring the envy of those who happen to be better off. Nothing good can come from it and a lot of ill will and needless acrimony is fostered by it all.

We have a very fine model for understanding economic differences among people in the field of competitive athletics. Sportsmanship is part of it, whereby competitors at all the different levels of achievement and skill live in harmony instead of hating one another and insisting on placing extra burdens on the successful. (Where there is a policy of handicapping it usually serves the purpose of making the sport more appealing to spectators and has nothing to do with equalization!)

I suggest we get rid of this attitude of rich bashing once and for all and shame those who refuse to do so instead of exploiting their attitude for political purposes.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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6 October, 2010

A small revolt against over-protective parenting

This is a real dilemma. I myself had a free-range childhood but my own son was rarely without a watchful eye on him during his childhood. So I can see both sides of the argument. I suspect that the society-wide decay of morality in all senses has in fact made a more protective role for parents a rational response

The food-faddist aspect of childcare is however driven more by misguided convictions than by social pressures, as far as I can see. One of the first things my son learned to say when he was a toddler was his McDonald's order! And there were always plenty of other kids in the store with perfectly respectable parents in attendance

New York journalist Lenore Skenzay let her 9-year-old son Izzy ride the subway by himself. The result was nothing short of hysterical. The syndicated columnist and her travelling tot suddenly found themselves at the centre of a media storm that saw Skenazy tarred as a Bad Mother for audiences from Chile to China and even Malta.

If there had been a handy pond nearby I’m sure there would have been at least one conservative commentator willing to find out whether she floated.

Skenazy is the author of “Free Range Kids”: her thesis being that we should untangle parenting from irrational fear and bring a certain rationality to the business of kid raising.

Her book can be traced in a line of work that could be dubbed the Bad Mommy genre of confessional writing that has emerged in the last few years that has sought to offer a counterpoint to the frenzied, goal-focused, perfectionist mantra of motherhood that has become the acceptable standard of being a Good Parent.

Skenazy’s controversial ideas are interesting given she has joined a growing number of writers whose view on the changing emphasis placed on parenthood, especially motherhood, has exposed the feverish flush of anxiety and control that now is popularly seen to be mandatory.

Novelist Ayelet Waldman was largely ahead of the curve, with her now infamous essay for the New York Times in 2005 in which she admitted that the passionate, intense love that consumed her was that which she felt for her husband, not her four children.

“If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children,” Waldman wrote.

In her piece, Waldman frets over whether allowing her husband (novelist Michael Chabon) to occupy a central place in her emotional world makes her a failure.

“I am the only woman in Mommy and Me who seems to be, well, getting any. This could fill me with smug sense of well-being. I could sit in the room and gloat over my wonderful marriage. I could think about how our sex life - always vital, even torrid - is more exciting and imaginative now than it was when we first met. I could check my watch to see if I have time to stop at Good Vibrations to see if they have any exciting new toys. I could even gaze pityingly at the other mothers in the group, wishing that they too could experience a love as deep as my own.”

“But I don’t. I am far too busy worrying about what’s wrong with me. Why, of all the women in the room, am I the only one who has not made the erotic transition a good mother is supposed to make? Why am I the only one incapable of placing her children at the center of her passionate universe?”

Waldman went on to turn her musings into a book called (what else?) “Bad Mother” which hit bookshelves last year. Reflecting on the brouhaha that conflagrated in the wake of her original piece and the surge in the number of books in the “Bad Mom” genre, Waldman told the New York Times: “There has been a backlash against that ‘perfect mother,’ and now people are starting to ache for a more realistic way to define women and motherhood.”

Her book has been joined by a number of titles by well-known women who have shared their confusion, angst and downright need for a drink since becoming mothers.

Founder of phenomenally popular blog, Dooce.com (it attracts 7 million hits a month), Heather Armstrong recently published a book called, “It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita”.

Actress Dani Klein wrote “Afterbirth: Stories You Won’t Read in a Parenting Magazine”.

All of these books in some way reinforce the idea of motherhood being a pursuit that leaves one perpetually open to a mass of potential criticism and judgement, while floundering in the midst of a deeper personal crisis.

“To be a mother—even simply to be a woman—in today’s world is to be made exhausted and resentful by a role or set of roles that we don’t recall deliberately choosing,” Sandra Tsing-Loh commented in an article for The Atlantic entitled On Being a Bad Mother.

Tsing-Loh says of her poor- by modern standards sort of parenting: “I am bad, not in that fluttery, anxious, 21st-century way educated middle-class mothers consider themselves ‘failures’ because they snap when they are tired, because they occasionally feed their kids McNuggets, because as they journal they soulfully question whether they’re mindfully attaining a proper daily work/life balance.”

What this genre of writing reflects is the cultural renegotiation we are currently experiencing about what being a decent parent means.

Whether some might think being a bad parent means feeding your kids fresh-from-the-box Mac’n’cheese or letting them catch the 380 to Bondi, take comfort from the fact there are a growing number of parents who think you’re doing a good job.

SOURCE





The lazy British police again

Policeman abandoned unconscious man to die by side of road... and then lied to hide his actions. Australians tend to see the British generally as work-shy and that certainly applies to their police

A policeman who left an unconscious man to die by the side of a road before inventing a story to cover his tracks has been found guilty of misconduct.

Former traffic officer Pc David Driver, 36, wrote false witness statements in his notebook after he found out 26-year-old Steven Hathaway had died. He told bosses he had spoken to Mr Hathaway and his friend who were outside a house in the picturesque Cotswold village of Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire.

But in fact Mr Hathaway had been comatose from drink and drugs and his friend barely able to stand when Driver left them in the middle of a freezing night on Valentine's Day last year. Less than an hour later Mr Hathaway died at the scene.

On Tuesday Driver admitted misconduct in a public office on the first day of his trial at Worcester Crown Court. The court heard Mr Hathaway might have survived if Driver had called an ambulance.

David Jackson, prosecuting, said an inquest had yet to be held but added: 'There is evidence that the cold had been a contributory factor, which Driver should have been aware of and acted upon. 'That doesn't make him legally responsible for the death, but it is a relevant factor.'

Driver was an officer for Gloucestershire Police when he spotted Mr Hathaway and another man lying on a pavement outside a house in Moore Road, Bourton-on-the-Water at 1.30am on Valentine's Day last year. He spoke to Mr Hathaway's friend who was also drunk before leaving them.

Ten minutes later a passing motorist saw the men and dialled 999 and two different police officers attended the scene. They called an ambulance but paramedics could not detect a pulse for Mr Hathaway and he was pronounced dead at 2.35am.

Judge Alistair McGreath said Driver 'panicked' after learning of Mr Hathaway's death and concocted a false report to cover his back. He said: 'He [Driver] said they were both capable and, critically, that neither of them were unconscious and incapably lying on the ground.'

Following Mr Hathaway's death, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (PICC) launched an investigation and Driver resigned from Gloucestershire Police. In February he pleaded guilty to neglecting his duty as a police officer and perverting the course of justice.

On Tuesday Judge McGreath adjourned the case and bailed Driver before sentencing on November 12. He told him: 'It is important that you understand I will pass on you the sentence that is appropriate on the information that I have. 'Being out on bail says nothing at all about what that sentence will be.'

SOURCE






Yet another false rape claim in Britain

Any conviction for rape in Britain would have to be regarded as unsafe unless there were independant witnesses actually present at the time

A horsewoman who claimed her boyfriend fed her a Pringles sandwich laced with diazepam to make her drowsy before raping her is facing jail. Kate Woodhead’s fiction extended to salacious details about him being ‘turned on’ as he pulled off her jodhpurs, a court heard. But after a three-week trial, a jury decided that her story was a pack of lies.

She made it up to get back at Porsche-driving Paul Joseph because she feared he was having an affair and thought he was about to walk out on her, Guildford Crown Court heard. During the case she was granted anonymity under an order made by the judge. But this was lifted when she was convicted.

The court heard that Mr Joseph, an IT consultant, divorced his wife in 2007 to be with Woodhead, who ran a business providing horses and carriages for weddings. They moved into a rented lodge with a stable block in Wisley, Surrey.

In the early hours of April 10 last year Woodhead went with a friend to a police station to accuse Mr Joseph of rape. She told officers she would pursue her complaint only if they promised not to approach her boyfriend until after she had sorted out her affairs, including the house.

She went home in a ‘friendly and jovial mood’, the jury was told, and the couple continued to share the house and enjoy sex while he remained in ignorance of what was happening behind his back.

The friend who accompanied her to the police station told the court Woodhead said she intended to make Mr Joseph pay for the ‘other woman’ and he ‘wouldn’t know what had hit him’.

Prosecutor Hugh Forgan said: ‘The allegation of rape is entirely fictitious. The pair had a topsy-turvy relationship and at the time of the allegation they were sleeping in ­separate beds. ‘However they still had a sex life, in fact she even had sex with him the day after going to the police crying rape.’

Their relationship ended after a furious row when Mr Joseph found a large number of ­condoms in a drawer and became convinced Woodhead was selling herself for sex. Woodhead kicked him out, changed the locks and obtained a court order banning him from the premises.

She packed his belongings, including a top-of-the-range Bang and Olufsen stereo, expensive art prints, and the desk from his study, into a horsebox. They were driven away and were never seen again.

In another ‘malicious’ act, she lied to the DVLA, transferring ownership of his ­Porsche ­Carrera and BMW motorbike to her name, intending to sell them. She was arrested after her friend went back to the police to tell them she thought the rape scenario was made up. The rape allegation against Mr Joseph was dropped and no action taken against him.

Cross-examining Mr Joseph, Andrew Turton, defending Woodhead, suggested that he made her a sandwich of Pringles and diazepam, then when she became drowsy he carried her to bed, and was ‘turned on’ by removing her jodhpurs before having sex with her without her consent.

Mr Joseph said: ‘A Pringle sandwich laced with diazepam must have been the driest ever. You’d think you could taste it. I wouldn’t eat it.’

The jury found Woodhead guilty of perverting the course of justice, fraud and two counts of theft. She had denied all the charges. Remanding her on bail until sentencing next month, Judge Neil Stewart said a custodial sentence was ‘almost inevitable’.

SOURCE







Rabbi Schlomo Lewis: "Ehr Kumt"

A great sermon by an American rabbi below. "Ehr Kumt" is Yiddish ("Er kommt" in High German) -- meaning "He is coming", referring first to Hitler and now to his modern-day ilk

I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred - but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped - but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.

I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.

We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn't know it from our behavior. During WWII we didn't refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn't call the Gestapo, militants. We didn't see the attacks on our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people.

We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein, nor for D-Day.

Evil - ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.

Not all Germans were Nazis - most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense - I didn't know." Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.

In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win... to rid the world of malevolence.

We are at war. yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don't put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.

Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.

To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.

A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.

After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.

"Shalom," he said. "Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania."

"Yes," I replied. "It was quite a powerful experience." "Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?"

"Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon." His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. "Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child."

He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. "I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul" (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin's mentor - he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued "When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. `EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL - He's coming. Jews abandon your city.' "

We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not."

We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack - our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.

Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably - I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don't worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.

Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent - thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish Islam and define it.

Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil. I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little time left he shared the following - "Shal. I am ready to leave this earth."

"Sure I'd like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I've had it. I'm done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become."

This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist Triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. - Yet his twilight observation was - "The worst is yet to come." And he wanted out.

I share my father's angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.

"Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You're sounding like Glen Beck. It's not that bad. It's not that real."

But I am here to tell you - "It is." Ask the member of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target - pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.

Ask them, ask all of them - ask the American GI's we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation package. Ask them if it's bad. Ask them if it's real.

Did anyone imagine in the 1920's what Europe would look like in the 1940's.

Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture?

Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris, Bialystok, Minsk, knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz?

The sages teach - "Aizehu chacham - haroeh et hanolad - Who is a wise person - he who sees into the future." We dare not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and na‹ve sense of security.

We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the offenders.

Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience.

More HERE

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

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

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

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5 October, 2010

Free Speech Victory

On August 10, a major victory for freedom of speech was achieved. President Obama signed the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act (SPEECH Act) into law, stopping Americans from being sued for libel by individuals in other countries with inadequate First Amendment rights. The legislation is a defeat for those who would seek to silence Americans speaking out against radical Islam by threatening to bankrupt them with costly lawsuits.

The story of the SPEECH Act starts with Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, the director of the American Center for Democracy, who bravely stood up to a Saudi billionaire named Khalid bin Mahfouz who she accused of financing terrorist groups in her book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed–and How to Stop It. Mahfouz, who died of a heart attack on August 16, 2009, targeted Ehrenfeld with a lawsuit as he had done to other authors accusing him of having ties to terrorism.

Taking advantage of the United Kingdom’s libel laws that force the defendant to prove their accusations in court, Mahfouz sued 45 publishers and journalists and all settled, except for Dr. Ehrenfeld. The U.N. Human Rights Committee even reported in 2008 that the laws “discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work, including through the phenomenon known as ‘libel tourism.’”

The result is that authors and publishers become unwilling to write about characters such as Mahfouz, aware of the cost that a lengthy legal case brings. Those targeted with such lawsuits have great difficulty finding work, as potential employers want to avoid meeting the same fate. This tactic, called “lawfare,” is very effective for nefarious organizations and individuals with the means of suing less wealthy critics into bankruptcy.

Ehrenfeld did not live in the U.K., and did not publish or even promote her book there. However, Mahfouz was able to justify the lawsuit because 23 copies of the book were bought there online. She reacted to the lawsuit by refusing to participate in the proceedings, arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction. As a result, she lost by default and she countersued from the United States saying her rights were being violated. The New York Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in her favor, and the state passed the Libel Terrorism Protection Act, often referred to as “Rachel’s Law.” Illinois, Florida, California, Maryland, Utah and Tennessee followed.

Dr. Ehrenfeld’s allegations against Mahfouz have a solid foundation. Mahfouz founded the Muwaffaq Foundation that was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a financier of Al-Qaeda. The individual chosen by Mahfouz to run the charity, Yassin al-Qadi, was also blacklisted for his links to Al-Qaeda and Hamas.

“The Muwafaq Foundation provided logistical and financial support for a mujahidin battalion in Bosnia…A number of individuals employed by or otherwise associated with the Muwafaq Foundation have connections to various terrorist organizations,” a November 2001 letter from the Treasury Department stated. It also accuses the charity of financing Hamas and Abu Sayyaf, an Al-Qaeda affiliate in the Philippines.

The 9/11 Commission Report also substantiates Ehrenfeld’s allegations. It does not mention Mahfouz, but it refers to a Gulf fundraising operation called the “Golden Chain” that funded Bin Laden from 1996 to 1998. Operatives connected to the network were arrested in 2002 in Bosnia with a document listing members of the “Golden Chain,” including Mahfouz.

The charity had been accused of sponsoring terrorism as early as 1995 by Africa Confidential, but the publication apologized and settled after being sued. Mahfouz admitted that he donated over $270,000 to Osama Bin Laden’s organization during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan after being approached by one of Bin Laden’s brothers. Extensive documentation exists of the links between the Muwafaq Foundation and terrorism all the way back to the mid-1990s.

Mahfouz also has a troubled history. He agreed to pay $225 million to settle fraud charges in 1993 after the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which he owned one-third of, was closed in 1991 because of its money laundering. Mahfouz denies any fault, saying his settling was just a “business decision.”

Terrorism expert and best-selling author Richard Miniter told FrontPage that these public records don’t make much of a difference in Britain when it comes to libel lawsuits. The defendant is required to prove their reporting in the court of law, going beyond citing such public documents. In the process, they must take on legal expenses that will likely lead them to financial ruin. This possibility is leading to self-censorship, he warned.

“It is a threat that hung over every writer,” Miniter said, adding that this was just one method in an overall lawfare strategy by Islamists.

“There is a constant effort by Islamic organizations, like the Muslim Brotherhood, to use America’s legal system against us, like they used our airplanes against us on 9/11,” he said. The goal is to punish anyone publicly standing against their agenda.

Now, the federal government has passed the SPEECH Act without a single dissenting vote, undermining those who would seek to use their wealth and power to intimidate whistleblowers like Dr. Ehrenfeld.

“For the first time, someone has blunted one of their attacks. All of our action has been defensive, and that’s why this is so important, that’s why it’s a major victory,” Miniter said.

This isn’t just a victory for her, but a victory for all Americans who believe in speaking out against ill-intentioned foreigners.

SOURCE





Victims of anti-social behaviour can name and shame police who don't help them, says British government crime boss

Home Secretary Theresa May is ordering police to 'reclaim the streets' from louts they have allowed to run riot. Anyone who feels to have been repeatedly ignored by officers when complaining about loutish behaviour will be given new powers to demand action.

Officers will also be instructed to treat vandalism and low-level thuggery as a crime - rather than 'anti-social behaviour' which is the problem of town halls.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail on the eve of her speech to the Tory conference, Mrs May revealed that the public will be given formal rights to complain to superiors if police do not respond to multiple complaints.

It is hoped that the prospect of an officer being named in a complaint by a harassed member of the public will lead to thuggish behaviour being treated far more seriously.

The Home Secretary's decision follows a blistering report by Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, who said police have staged a 30-year 'retreat from the streets'. Sir Denis O'Connor said that, as a result, the 'disease' of anti-social behaviour had been allowed to blight Britain.

Mrs May said she wanted to get rid of the term 'anti-social behaviour' - which was largely coined by the last Labour government. Instead, it should be called what it is - 'crime and disorder', she said.

'By calling it anti-social behaviour, it made it seem less important and it made it seem less of a crime. It is a crime. Dealing with this is about cutting crime and the job of the police is cutting crime. 'Part of the problem is that people feel they are reporting things that are wrong but they are not seeing any action. As a society we need to reclaim the streets, and part of that is about police being on the streets and being visible.'

In her speech today, Mrs May will spell out how police will face a formal investigation by the local Community Safety Partnership if they ignore repeated pleas for help from the public. The partnership - a panel which includes local police chiefs - will then have to explain what action is being taken to new locally-elected police commissioners.

It is a direct response to the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her disabled 18-year-old daughter. Miss Pilkington, who was being tormented by a gang of youths, made 33 desperate 999 calls over seven years. But she was accused of 'over-reacting' and, unable to bear the torment any more, she killed herself and her daughter by setting fire to their car near their home in Barwell, Leicestershire.

Mrs May will announce the appointment of Baroness Newlove - whose husband Garry was murdered after standing up to drunken vandals - as the Government's new 'champion for active, safer communities'.

She will say: 'Too often we hear stories of victims who are passed from pillar to post, from the police to environmental services to the housing department before being passed back to the police again. 'We hear about victims who call the police on dozens of occasions but aren't taken seriously and in many cases are ignored altogether. So as part of our reforms to antisocial behaviour powers, we will give victims and communities the right to force the authorities to take action where they fail to do so.'

The HMIC's study found millions of acts of drunken loutishness and vandalism are going unreported as they have become 'normalised'.

The basic task of keeping the peace had been relegated to a 'second-order consideration' for officers who were obsessed with meeting targets for recorded crimes, he added.

The 'Stop the Rot' report showed that last year, 3.5million acts of anti-social behaviour were reported. But this represents only one in four of the estimated real total, meaning an astonishing 14million such incidents were carried out - one every two seconds.

The report warned that police forces are routinely ignoring thousands of repeat victims of harassment and thuggery. Forces often mark such calls as 'low priority' because they do not qualify as crimes. As a result, no action is taken.

A separate HMIC report in July found that just 11 per cent of officers are visible and available to the public at any one time, and more were available on Monday morning than when they might most be needed, on Saturday nights when there is more drunken aggression.

Mrs May indicated she will forge ahead with plans to scrap the antisocial behaviour order, which she said had become a badge of honour among thugs. She wants to replace the Asbo with a far simpler, less bureaucratic punishment to keep thugs in check.

Labour introduced a multitude of policies aimed at combating antisocial behaviour, including Asbos. But last year Home Secretary Alan Johnson admitted Labour had 'coasted' on the issue.

SOURCE





The lengths you need to go to in order to get help against louts in Britain

Mother stands in front of train



When a gang of drunken football yobs began hurling foul abuse at a mother and her five-year-old son on a train, she presumed someone would intervene. But the driver refused to call the police or stop the train and the guard was nowhere to be seen.

Faced with giving in or standing up to the 30-strong group, Lisa Robinson decided to take them on.

When the train reached her station she got off and stood in front of it, refusing to move until the driver called police. Rail company Arriva then terminated the train there, leaving the abusive fans to make their own way home.

Yesterday Mrs Robinson said: ‘It was a terrifying experience, but I’m glad I did it. It was a victory for ordinary people.’

The 41-year-old mother had been on a day out with her husband Peter, 61, and their son Harry to celebrate his fifth birthday. The couple, civil servants from Ystrad Mynach near Caerphilly in South Wales, had taken Harry to Cardiff before returning home on the Arriva service.

As they boarded the two-carriage train on Saturday September 25, they realised it was full of drunken Cardiff City fans who had just seen their team beat Millwall.

The family tried to ignore the shouting and swearing hooligans, but when the train arrived at a station and the gang began abusing a woman on the platform, Mrs Robinson decided to intervene. ‘I walked down to the group and asked the main perpetrator to stop swearing,’ she said. ‘They then turned their abuse on me, calling me a ‘‘dyke’’ and a string of four-letter words.

‘Nobody said anything. I was terrified. I wanted to alert the guard, but there was no way into the next carriage so we were completely trapped. ‘Then they swore at my husband, who was sitting with Harry, and taunted him about his age. By the time the train set off again I was crying and shaking.’ She was so frightened she pulled the emergency handle at the next station.

But she said that when the driver got into the carriage, he simply reset the alarm and went back to drive the train, ignoring her husband’s request to call the police.

Mrs Robinson added: ‘The train carried on for another two stops, with the abuse continuing, until it arrived at our station, Ystrad Mynach. When I got off I had Harry in my arms and he was crying. The driver completely ignored us and told us to take it up with the guard. We had not seen one for the entire journey – I think he had been too frightened to intervene.

‘It was then I decided to take direct action. I spoke to the driver who again ignored me – he wouldn’t even take his sunglasses off to talk to me. ‘So I handed Harry to Peter, got on to the tracks and stopped the train from leaving the station. Some of the football yobs got off to give me more abuse and take pictures of me on their mobiles.’

She said the guard then appeared and asked her to move, which she refused to do. She eventually moved after the station controller promised her he would not move the train and that the police would be called. Two British Transport Police officers arrived and, after discussions with railway officials, the train was terminated.

Mrs Robinson said yesterday that she was glad she had made a stand and would do it again. ‘I think too often these yobs are allowed to get away with it,’ she added. ‘When the thugs started kicking off, one woman said to me that I should accept it as it was just the world we live in. But I refuse to live in a society where this sort of thing goes unpunished.

‘Arriva sent me flowers and apologies, but what they really need to do is plan to make sure these things don’t happen. They knew there was a football game on and should have laid on extra staff. Instead, they had one guard who I’m convinced was hiding in the other carriage. ‘I still can’t believe the driver ignored my husband when he asked him to phone the police.’

Peter Northcott, head of stations at Arriva Trains Wales, said: ‘We take all complaints very seriously and I personally contacted Mr and Mrs Robinson on the day of this incident. A full investigation is taking place with the British Transport Police.’

A spokesman for British Transport Police said: ‘Inquiries, including viewing CCTV and speaking to witnesses who were on the train, which was travelling between Penarth and Bargoed, are ongoing.’

SOURCE






Australia: "Soft" jails a disaster

CHANGES to discipline in state prisons have sparked an outbreak of crime at one of Queensland's highest-security jails. The Courier-Mail can reveal a spate of incidents at Maryborough Correctional Centre since controversial changes to the disciplinary process were implemented across Queensland four months ago.

In one incident at the medium-to-high-security facility – which houses 479 male inmates – a female prison nurse was allegedly assaulted by one of Queensland's most violent criminals. The nurse suffered facial injuries, including two black eyes, when a prisoner serving an indefinite sentence for attempted murder allegedly attacked the nurse with a bottle on August 26.

A prison officer, who did not want to be named for fear of losing their job, said prison management had broken protocol because the inmate was not transferred to another jail. "That nurse is still medicating that prisoner," the officer told The Courier-Mail.

Police did not receive a formal complaint until September 17 – three weeks after it happened.

Corrective Services Minister Neil Roberts refused to comment on the assault, but said the nurse had continued to work in the same area as the offender "under staff supervision". Corrective Services was considering transferring the inmate to another facility, he said.

In another alarming incident at Maryborough, prison sources say management waited two days before acting on reports from prison officers that two inmates had been seen on CCTV "shooting up" (injecting drugs intravenously) in a prison laundry on September 11. The delayed search failed to find evidence of the crime. Two inmates were also seen injecting drugs in a prison yard on June 5, the minister confirmed.

The Queensland Public Sector Union and prison staff blame the rise in incidents on a new Breach of Discipline process which they say has stripped staff of authority. QPSU organiser David McInnes said the change in philosophy "came out of nowhere". Mr McInnes said that until recently "mini-hearings" for inmates who committed offences were conducted by correctional supervisors at any time of the day or night, but now they were heard by a manager during office hours. "At the end of the day (management) is generally perceived as being softer in terms of consequences," he said.

"Management at Woodford are all over it and coping well, but at Wacol they've got big problems with breaches (of discipline) lapsing. Management is running around asking them to not (discipline) prisoners."

A prison officer said inmates had "gained the upper hand" since the power shift. "(Management) are in an admin block and spend hardly any time face to face with prisoners. We're there dealing with them daily," the officer said. "(Prisoners) are pushing the boundaries with their verbal abuse and we've got to be nice to them and treat them with respect. "The prisoners' behaviour, knowing that their punishment is going to be minor, just seems to be getting worse.

Director of the Office of the Commissioner for Corrections, Ross McSwain, gave conflicting responses, denying there was a new disciplinary policy, but admitting there had been changes in procedure. Mr McSwain admitted a review late last year had led to managers replacing correctional supervisors in the disciplinary process.

He said elevating the breach hearings to a manager was designed to ensure greater impartiality and separate the roles of prison officers from managers when investigating incidents. "Maintaining an appropriate level of consistency of penalties has been part of the changes."

Opposition prisons spokesman Vaughan Johnson said jails were not being run in accordance with government policy. "There have been other incidents that have left staff scratching their heads as to who's running the prison," he said.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



4 October, 2010

Muslim woman fired from British estate agency for REFUSING to wear a headscarf

Hmmmm... I am inclined to think that any business has a right to set down dress standards required at work. That fact that the same standard was not required of non-Muslim employees rather destroys that defence, however -- JR

A Muslim woman has been awarded more than £13,500 after she was sacked for refusing to wear a headscarf at the estate agency where she worked. Ghazala Khan - a 31-year-old non-practising Muslim - was fired less than two weeks into her job at a company run by traditional Muslim businessman Masood Ghafoor simply because she refused to cover her hair.

Mr Ghafoor told Miss Khan, who had nine years experience in the trade, that his wife and female relatives all wore full veils or burkas, telling her that her parents had given her 'far too much freedom'.

A tribunal heard that Miss Khan had been employed to run Mr Ghafoor's Go Go Real Estate office in Leeds, West Yorkshire, in June 2009. However, within days of working there she was left feeling 'very uncomfortable and intimidated' when Mr Ghafoor put it to her that she had not been brought up as a 'good Muslim' and that if she had been his daughter she would not be allowed to work and would have been long since 'married off'.

He asked her to wear a headscarf at work - even though white non-Muslim women he employed in the same office were never asked to and never did. On the day she was due to start her third week in the job, Mr Ghafoor told her not to bother coming in.

When she eventually caught up with him later that evening he told her that members of the Muslim community had been 'gossiping' and suggested that she was not 'respectable' and that there might be 'something going on' between her and members of staff.

Mr Ghafoor added that his cousin Shakeel, who was also employed in the office, was unhappy working with a female especially as she did not wear a headscarf, was not religious and was Westernised.

Graduate Miss Khan, who represented herself at the hearing in Leeds, won her claim for discrimination on the grounds of her lack of religion or belief, by dismissing her and sex discrimination.

She has been awarded £13,566.67 for injury to feelings, loss of earnings and unpaid holiday pay. The tribunal concluded: 'Ms Khan described herself as British Pakistani, meaning that she is of Asian racial origin and of Pakistani national origin. 'She also described herself as a non-practising Muslim, meaning that she identified with the Muslim religon but did not attend her local mosque, pray regularly or cover her hair. 'The respondent on the other hand is a practising Muslim with traditional religious and cultural beliefs.'

The tribunal heard that at her job interview Miss Khan had worn a grey pinstripe trouser suit, described as 'conventional modern professional dress'.

Mr Ghafoor wanted her to run the office when he was out on business, telling her he wanted 'someone professional in the front office' and she began work there on June 17 last year.

The tribunal heard that Mr Ghafoor had originally told Miss Khan there was no problem with the way she dressed. 'He was happy that she was fully covered up by the black trousers and long sleeved blouses and tops that she wore to work,' the tribunal heard. 'By the time of the hearing, he was saying that she had chosen to wear clothing of a very revealing nature.'

After sacking Miss Khan on June 30, Mr Ghafoor went on to acknowledge that Miss Khan had not done anything wrong at work and that it was not her fault. 'He was happy with her work, it was just that they could not have a woman working in the office,' the tribunal ruled.

'He added that they had had a 'problem' like that before with what he described as a Westernised young Muslim Asian woman working there. 'They had dismissed her too after a few days for essentially the same reason. 'In her case, however, the respondent had found her another job in a friend's office.

The tribunal concluded: 'We find that the respondent treated the claimant less favourably by dismissing her and not his white women employees because she would not cover her hair. 'That refusal on Ms Khan's part was owing to a lack of belief that her religion obliged her to do so.

'Whilst she identified with the Muslim faith, she did not agree with its practices as applied to women. 'That was the ground for her dismissal, although it can be said that the refusal to wear a headscarf was simply a manifestation of a lack of belief. 'We do not think, however, that such a narrow interpretation is appropriate on these facts.

'For the authorities indicate that an employer is entitled to maintain a 'secular' workplace by eluding manifestations of religious belief from working practices and dress, if it deems it appropriate in the circumstances. 'We can see no reason why that principle should not apply to an employee in the circumstances of this case. 'Further, we decided that a purely cultural interpretation of the requirement to wear a headscarf was too narrow.

'We agree with Ms Khan that the requirement is a mixture of the cultural and the religious in so far as it is derived from a particular interpretation of Islamic scriptures.

'As for sex discrimination, there was direct evidence that Ms Khan's sex as a woman played a part in the decision to dismiss. 'Cousin Shakeel did not want to work with a Muslim woman who did not cover her hair. 'The covering is an expression of female modesty. 'He would have treated any male employee more favourably by working with him, all other things being equal. 'Accordingly we found that the discrimination was equally on the ground of the claimant's sex.'

The tribunal concluded: 'Our impression of Ms Khan was of an articulate young woman who genuinely needed a job and would not have behaved in the way described by Mr Ghafoor.'

Mr Ghafoor was cleared of race discrimination as the tribunal ruled he would have treated black or white female converts the same as he treated Ms Khan.

SOURCE







One autistic kid used as an excuse for another intrusion into family life



He should be running around laughing and playing with the other children at his nursery.

But because he watches so much TV, one three-year-old boy has already become cut off from his peers, trapped in his own ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ world instead.

The toddler, known only as Max, has spent so long watching the show that he barely speaks to other children at his nursery school and instead wanders around in a daze obsessively repeating phrases from the TV programme.

He watches the cartoon for as many as five hours a day – and doctors fear that it has had a long-term effect on his development and communication skills.

The programme is full of catchphrases, such as the character Thomas saying he wants to be a ‘really useful engine’ and exclaiming ‘well bust my buffers’, or those of his faithful coaches Annie and Claribel ‘We feel so full,we feel so full’.

Another well-known phrase goes ‘Silly old Gordon fell in the ditch, fell in the ditch, fell in the ditch,’ from the episode which shows the big green engine purposely running into a ditch to avoid pulling a goods’ train.

The boy, who lives in the U.S, is being treated by a specialist in California. Doctors are so alarmed that they have reported his behaviour in a paper published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

The youngster’s mother reportedly lets him watch as much TV as he likes. He also likes to watch the Disney Channel, which includes popular programmes such as Hannah Montana and Phineas and Ferb.

However, his case is by no means unique and experts warn that children who watch too much television may be in danger of suffering learning difficulties later on.

Some doctors believe the problem is becoming so widespread that toddlers younger than two should be banned from watching any TV at all.

Researchers in Britain fear that television is increasingly hindering children’s communication skills and ability to concentrate as well as contributing to rates of obesity, because screen-based activities mean they are less inclined to be physically active.

They are considering drawing up strict guidelines which could even advise parents to ban toddlers from watching TV.

Stuart Biddle is chairman of the ‘sedentary behaviour and obesity’ working party, which is currently considering guidelines for the Department of Health. He said: ‘We are considering what guidelines should say, and a statement around no television for the under-twos is potentially one of the more controversial ones.’

Some countries are already considering a similar policy. last year, the Australian government began drawing up guidance suggesting a ban for children under two. The advice, which is being finalised, also recommends that those aged between two and five should watch a maximum of one hour a day.

France has also banned any programmes specifically being made for those under five.

SOURCE





Shame on Family Films?

By L. Brent Bozell

Don't read Newsweek magazine while drinking a beverage. A spit take is the obvious first reaction to a column by Julia Baird headlined "The Shame of Family Films." On the Internet, this article is coded as "Why Family Films Are So Sexist."

Baird's denunciation of Hollywood's fraction of decent entertainment began: "They have all been smash hits: 'Finding Nemo,' 'Madagascar,' 'Ice Age,' 'Toy Story.' Fish, penguins, rats, stuffed animals, talking toys. All good innocent family fun, right? Sure, except there are few female characters in those films. There are certainly few doing anything meaningful or heroic -- and no, Bo Peep doesn't count."

So what does feminist bean-counting have to do with whether a movie is "good innocent family fun"? Did any young girl come away from "Finding Nemo" feeling like the memory-challenged Ellen DeGeneres fish character didn't represent female empowerment effectively? Were they offended by the oppressively archaic stereotype of Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl during "Toy Story 2"? Families can't enjoy these films without expecting them to pass some politically correct quota exam?

The Newsweek columnist was promoting a new study from Stacy Smith and Marc Choueiti of the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism at the University of Southern California. They reportedly analyzed 122 family films (rated G, PG and PG-13), including 50 top-grossing ones, between 2006 and 2009. She found it "startling" that there is "only one female character to every three male characters in family movies." (Well, not exactly -- they claim 29.2 percent of characters were female.)

Worse than that, Baird the Angry Feminist protested, "The female characters were also more likely than men to be beautiful." Well, that's scandalously unfair! (Don't think Baird wouldn't also protest if a certain number of women were ugly beyond repair.)

There's more. One in five female characters were "portrayed with some exposed skin between the mid-chest and upper thigh regions." If a conservative tried to suggest "The Little Mermaid" should put on a shirt, tell me Newsweek wouldn't point fingers and laugh. But that's what Newsweek's Angry Feminist is suggesting.

Baird was especially upset that cartoons might exaggerate the female physique: "One in four women was shown with a waist so small that, the authors concluded, it left 'little room for a womb or any other internal organs.' Maybe we could carry them in our purses?" Baird even claimed "another study" found "women in G-rated films wear the same amount of skimpy clothing as women in R-rated films."

That just sounds ludicrous. Anyone wanting to check on Baird's academic assertions would have trouble, since these two studies she's referring to cannot be found on the Annenberg School website or anywhere else online. The Annenberg study was commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which has been compiling data on women in film. Davis, the actress who most recently played the president on ABC, told Newsweek that 17 percent of animators are female, and women form 17 percent of crowd scenes in family films. Only 17 percent of narrators are female.

Ridiculous -- and funny, too. How nit-pickingly intricate are these studies to count genders in "crowd scenes"? WHO CARES? As for only 17 percent of females being narrators, does Davis find it distasteful if her husband reads a bedtime story?

But Davis isn't done with her feminist footnotes. She also claims research shows that the more TV a girl watches, the fewer options she believes she has in life, and the more a boy watches, the more his views become sexist. A look at the Geena Davis Institute website shows that her group is marshaling feminist research attacking on all of these fronts -- the dearth of female characters, animators, directors and so on -- with the entire panoply of TV and movies, not just the family films.

There's nothing wrong with seeking more female directors, producers or major characters in Hollywood -- they're supposed to be feminist enough to have already imposed "affirmative action." But for Newsweek to single out family films as somehow shameful is beyond unfair -- especially since none of them are truly singled out. Tell us how "Finding Nemo" or "Toy Story" are the work of sexist pigs.

Baird isn't just an Angry Feminist; she's a hypocrite, too. Last year, her own magazine tried to embarrass Sarah Palin by putting an old photo of her on the cover in running shorts, suggesting this Caribou Barbie wasn't ready for prime time. Did Baird protest? No, she defended the cover since Palin "has been photographed and filmed more than once in aerobic gear."

Newsweek, heal thyself.

SOURCE







California Death Penalty Once Again Thwarted by Thug Huggers

On Oct. 28, 1980, Albert Greenwood Brown snatched Susan Jordan, 15, raped and strangled her to death with her own shoelace. Brown, who was on parole after raping a 14-year-old girl, then spent the night tormenting the dead girl's parents over the phone, telling them that they would never see their daughter again and where to find the girl's half-nude corpse and belongings. A jury sentenced him to death for that crime.

Last Wednesday, almost 30 years later, Brown was scheduled to be executed. Of course, it didn't happen. Various judges intervened, the state's meager supply of lethal-injection drugs was about to expire -- and so California's death penalty is on hold until 2011.

There hasn't been an execution in California since January 2006. In February of that year, federal Judge Jeremy Fogel essentially ordered a de facto moratorium on California's three-drug lethal-injection protocol because there was "undue risk" -- not that he knew if it had ever happened -- that a condemned murderer could "suffer excessive pain when he is executed."

In April 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that Kentucky's three-drug lethal-injection protocol is constitutional. Yet Fogel's injunction continued to prevent executions as California officials scrambled to reconfigure the lethal-injection protocol under a superior court judge's order.

No matter which course the state chooses, taxpayer-funded appellate attorneys have managed to block justice -- and on the taxpayer's dime.

Last month, Fogel issued a ruling to allow California's new lethal-injection protocol to proceed. Brown's attorneys argued that under the three-drug protocol, Brown might suffer pain after the initial injection of sodium pentothal. Ohio dealt with that argument by moving to a one-drug injection of that drug. Death penalty opponents complained that Ohio wanted to do drug testing on humans.

Likewise, Brown's attorneys protested that the new protocol was "untested." (Be it noted, there is only one way to test it.)

Fogel gave Brown the option of a single-drug option. His lawyers protested that Brown has given a too "short time frame" to decide. And they prevailed.

On Thursday, I talked to state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron George. His court also issued a ruling that stayed Brown's execution, this one on a narrow timing issue.

George told me, "I'd say, when the authorities end up procuring the second dose of lethal drug, I don't see why we shouldn't have executions resume."

Why is it, I asked, that Ohio has managed to execute 32 people since 1999, but California has only used capital punishment 13 times since 1977? (My answer would be: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.)

"We have a system that is dysfunctional," George answered. It was George who once famously said, "The leading cause of death on death row in California is old age."

Oddly, at Tuesday night's gubernatorial debate, neither Democrat Attorney General Jerry Brown nor Republican former eBay CEO Meg Whitman seemed particularly exercised about the delays.

Jerry Brown posited that the delays are "too lengthy." He then cited George's past calls to hire more personnel to handle the backlog, "because under the Constitution, these men who are condemned have a right to first-class representation." (Actually, George told me, "The operative word is effective representation, not first-class.")

Criminal Justice Legal Foundation legal director Kent Scheidegger blogged that Brown "seems to have swallowed the defense spin on the issue, hook, line, and sinker."

Whitman promised to be "a tough-on-crime governor." But she seemed most concerned about the money issues, when she said that if the state can't speed up the process, "we are going to be on the brink of building another death row facility."

This isn't an issue of prison construction costs. The anti-death penalty lobby is committed to burning through so much time and taxpayer money that voters cry uncle and give up on the death penalty because they're sick of bankrolling frivolous appeals that successfully thwart capital punishment even though the U.S. and California Supreme Courts have ruled it to be constitutional.

When they've won on the death penalty, they'll start trying to shave time from life-without-parole sentences, which they also consider to be inhumane -- on your dime as well.

The next governor needs to understand these forces and not give in to the siren song of inertia. But I don't think either Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman understands what is at stake.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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



3 October, 2010

Suppressing freedom to preserve democracy

The editor of a Finnish weekly is alarmed by the Swedish left’s desire to censor the right-wing Sweden Democrats

‘The forces of darkness are holding Swedish democracy hostage.’

That was how the Swedish daily Expressen described the ascent of the right-wing, immigration-concerned Sweden Democrats party to parliament in the elections on 19 September. This ‘threat to democracy’ gained just short of six per cent of the vote across Sweden and 20 seats in the 349-seat parliament.

Amazingly enough, this was not the most dramatic example of hyperbole. Words like ‘racists’, ‘fascists’ and ‘loonies’ were freely bandied about in the Swedish press to describe the Sweden Democrats and their supporters.

The press had made its views clear well before the election took place. Practically every major newspaper in Sweden took the unprecedented step of refusing to take advertising from this party that allegedly threatens democracy.

The press thus decided to protect Swedish democracy by suppressing free speech. On cue, all parliamentary parties have stated that they will not cooperate with the Sweden Democrats.

While there is no question that a considerable portion of the people who support the Sweden Democrats party – which was founded in 1988 and which describes itself as a ‘nationalist movement’ – are xenophobic, and some are probably racist, the official views of the party are well within the range of normal democratic debate.

So the party states on its website that Swedish immigration policy should take its cue from Denmark and Finland. These two countries are unlikely examples of neo-fascist wannabes.

So why all the fuss? The social-democratic paper Västerbottens Folkblad encapsulated the real offence of the Sweden Democrats in a recent editorial, where it stated: ‘What on Earth do the people who voted for them want?’

Sweden has a long and proud history of political participation. More than 80 per cent of the electorate routinely votes in parliamentary elections. The notable exception to this has been the far right, which has been both demonised and marginalised in Swedish society.

Countless TV-news exposés have given the impression of vast neo-Nazi conspiracies intent on taking over the Scandinavian welfare state. That, at best, these far-right groups can organise a rally of 100 to 200 beer-drinking skinheads has never prevented journalists from painting them as an imminent threat to Swedish democracy.

Now that some of these yobs, who are a small minority in the Sweden Democrats party, have cleaned up their act, the same people who deplored their extra-parliamentary activities heap scorn on them for participating in the parliamentary process.

Never mind that their views are now exposed to public, critical debate, or that their party has publicly disassociated itself from racism. It is interesting to note that the same society that will bend over backwards to include extreme views on the other side of the cultural debate – namely militant imams – refuses to talk to the radicalised section of the indigenous population.

In an open democracy, the powers-that-be should welcome the chance to engage extremist views in open debate. Especially when those views do not breach Sweden’s strict hate speech laws. Yet it seems that the Swedish press would prefer that the grievances of the Sweden Democrats be met with batons instead of ballots.

The problem for Swedish democracy appears to be, not that some people are left in the margins, but that they have tried to be included.

SOURCE





A Look At The Technologies & Industries Senators Leahy & Hatch Would Have Banned In The Past

The more I look at the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act," (COICA) bill proposed by Senators Patrick Leahy and Orrin Hatch (and co-sponsored by Sens. Herb Kohl, Arlen Specter, Charles Schumer, Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Amy Klobuchar, Evan Bayh and George Voinovich) the worse it looks. The idea behind the bill is to give the Justice Department the ability to avoid due process in shutting down or blocking access to sites deemed "dedicated to infringing activities."

With such a broad definition of offerings dedicated to infringing activities, I thought it might be worth running through a list of technologies that and services that were all deemed "dedicated to infringing activities" in their early days, to give you a sense of what these Senators would have banned in the past with such a law:

* Hollywood itself: The history of Hollywood is that it was set up on the west coast in order to avoid Thomas Edison's attempt to control the movie making business with various patents. Hollywood was very much an entire industry dedicated to infringing activities in its early years.

* The recording industry: The origins of modern copyright law in the US came out of fears by musicians that the concept of any kind of automatic playing or "recorded" music would destroy the market for real live musicians. The fear of the player piano was a big, big issue in the early days, with sheet music producers claiming that piano rolls were infringing. So, the early parts of the recording industry were very much "dedicated to infringing activities."

* Radio: When radio first came about, it too was "dedicated to infringing activities." That's because it played music on the radio without paying.

* Cable TV: The very early days of cable TV involved the cable companies offering network television without paying for -- and, even worse, they were charging customers for access to others' content. The very core of the original cable TV system was "dedicated to infringing activities." Charlton Heston denounced cable as "depriving actors of compensation."

* Photocopying machines: When the Xerox machine came on the scene in the late 1950s, it freaked out the publishing industry who denounced it as being dedicated to infringing activities. Just as the 1909 Copyright Act was mainly a response to misguided fears of the player piano, some say the 1976 Copyright Act was in response to the Xerox machine. Some of the modern concepts around fair use came about due to lawsuits from publishers claiming that the photocopier was, in fact, dedicated to infringing activities.

* The VCR: By this point, you should know the famous Jack Valenti quote: "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." Yup. Dedicated to infringing activity.

* Cassette tapes: "Home taping is killing music." Need I say more?

* The MP3 player: Remember the RIAA's lawsuit against the Diamond Rio? They declared that such a device "stymies the market for . . . works and frustrates the development of legitimate digitally downloadable music." So, that iPod? Yes, it, too, was dedicated to infringing activity.

* The DVR: In 2001, a bunch of TV companies sued, claiming that the Replay TV DVR was an "unlawful scheme" that "attacks the fundamental economic underpinnings of free television and basic nonbroadcast services"

Notice a pattern yet? All sorts of new technologies tend to be berated and condemned as "dedicated to infringing activity," by legacy content industries when those new offerings first come along. It's only later on, when the industry learns to use those new tools of creating, recording, reproducing, performing, distributing, sharing and promoting that they realize those tools turned out to be quite useful in expanding, rather than shrinking, the industry.

Yet, here we are, with the list of Senators above, effectively looking to not allow that evolution to happen at all. They won't even give these new tools a fair trial (which, at the very least, was afforded to many of the tools in this list). Instead, they want to let the Justice Department (which, again, employs many former lawyers of the legacy industries) to simply put together a list of tools they believe infringe and to avoid due process in getting those tools effectively banned. The people making this list are not visionaries. They don't see how these tools can be quite useful to content creators. They're anti-visionaries. They only see how the new tools change the rules for the legacy industry. Do we really want anti-visionaries outlawing the next movie industry? Or the next VCR? Or the next iPod?

SOURCE





At last! An end to Britain's "elf 'n' safety" madness as meddling officials face fines if they ban events

Meddling officials who attempt to ban events or activities on the grounds that they breach red tape will themselves be threatened with huge fines under Government plans.

And emergency workers, teachers and office workers are to be freed from the compensation culture where someone must be held to account for everyday mishaps and accidents.

Margaret Thatcher’s former trade secretary Lord Young, who has drawn up a string of proposals accepted by David Cameron, says a decade of Labour laws and regulations will now be torn up.

The assault on the excesses of the health and safety culture will form a key part of the Tory Party conference which begins tomorrow in Birmingham, and is seen as a potential vote winner.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Lord Young unveiled plans which include:

* Local authorities who wrongly try to block events on health and safety grounds will be forced to pay large-scale compensation;

* No-win, no-fee advertising encouraging personal injury claims will face a major crackdown;

* Red tape that means many children never go on school outings is to be scrapped

* People performing first aid or Good Samaritan acts are to be exempted from being sued.

Lord Young, 78, said ‘petty tyrants’ had been allowed to flourish under Labour.

He said he had uncovered extraordinary examples, including a restaurant that would not give out toothpicks for fear of injury, a headteacher who told pupils not to walk under a conker tree without helmets and a council that banned a pancake race because it was raining.

‘It makes you wonder what sort of world we have come to,’ Lord Young said. ‘It has gone to such extremes. What I have seen everywhere is a complete lack of common sense. People have been living in an alternative universe.’

Lord Young said he was particularly concerned about council officials who often claimed powers to stop village fetes, sporting events or other events when they have none. In one example, organisers of the annual Whitsun cheese-rolling down a steep hill in the Cotswolds cancelled it this year after pressure from police and local authorities.

In future those affected by wrong decisions may go to the local government ombudsman who will be able to insist that a council pays compensation.

Asked how much local authorities would be forced to pay, Lord Young said: ‘Whatever the loss is. I want officials to think twice and make sure they have the authority. ‘This sort of nonsense has come from the last government trying to create a nanny state and trying to keep everybody in cotton wool.

‘Frankly if I want to do something stupid and break my leg or neck, that’s up to me. I don’t need a council to tell me not to be an idiot. I can be an idiot all by myself.’

He said the Government, which has approved his report, due to be published later this month, would also implement a crackdown on ‘ambulance-chasing’ personal injury firms. There will be restrictions on the way they advertise their services and a limit to speculative law suits.

‘The last government allowed no-win, no-fee advertising and we have seen an enormous rush of it, on afternoon TV particularly,’ Lord Young said. ‘A lot of them aren’t lawyers - they’re claims management companies. ‘People are being paid for making a claim. Legal expenses are now two or three times the claim. The biggest cost to the health service is legal fees. That’s going to stop.’

Schools are to be freed from burdensome regulations. Lord Young said: ‘Schools are not allowing pupils to go on days out because they are scared they will be liable if an accident happens. ‘That’s nonsense, and that’s not going to continue, unless a teacher is really negligent. In the ordinary course of events, accidents happen.’

The Health and Safety Executive enforces 202 primary regulations, a third of which were passed since Labour came to power in 1997.

Lord Young, who has an office in Downing Street, revealed that the Prime Minister has asked him to stay on to advise on turning public services into locally-owned co-operatives. Baroness Thatcher once said of him: ‘Other people brought me problems. He brought me solutions.’

SOURCE





Australia: The right to freedom of speech is being threatened in the courtroom

Andrew Bolt is getting sued. Don't applaud yet. There's been a lot of outrage about the federal government's proposed internet filter. But lawsuits like the one now faced by the prominent conservative Herald Sun columnist are as much a restriction on freedom of speech as anything Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has come up with.

Nine people are suing Bolt for an article that claimed their Aboriginal self-identification was "fashionable". He had said they all had part-European, part-indigenous heritage (and fair skin) with an opportunity to describe themselves as a range of nationalities. But, he wrote, they chose to describe themselves as Aboriginal. Doing so gave them "political and career clout".

At worst, Bolt is deliberately and provocatively disrespectful.

But as their lawyer has pointed out, there are two tests of whether someone is Aboriginal. The first is an objective genealogical test: a fairly clear cut question of whether they have Aboriginal ancestors. The second is subjective: whether a person chooses to self-identify as indigenous, and whether they are "communally" regarded as such.

Bolt's columns criticised political appointments and government awards that pivot on an individual's Aboriginality. They're absolutely within their rights to apply for those grants, prizes and positions. But like it or not, by sponsoring things like indigenous-specific art and literary awards, the government makes what constitutes Aboriginality a political question.

And it's a question academics have been trying to unpack for decades. Universities teach courses in the "concept of Aboriginality". Surveying the literature in 2002, the Parliamentary Library could only conclude "an individual's ethnic identity is always to some degree fluid, multiple, differing in degrees, and constructed".

Of course, Bolt tackles the issue with trademark belligerence. The merits of his argument will now be tested in court. But put aside the conservative commentator. This isn't about the collected works and opinions of Andrew Bolt. And put aside the complexities of racial identity, Aboriginality and reconciliation.

This case is troubling because of what it says about our right to freedom of speech. If successful - or just really expensive to defend - this lawsuit could have a stifling effect on political debate.

The 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that only by airing contested views publicly and freely could the truth be known. Societies need free speech if only to test and challenge controversial opinions.

And we're not going to have those necessary debates while legal action stifles one side. No matter how wrong or misguided that side may be.

Silencing Bolt doesn't just silence him. It potentially silences the speech of others who might be afraid of being similarly dragged through the legal system.

After all, Bolt and his employer can afford to defend themselves. No doubt they have lawyers on call. Newspapers know their way around court.

By contrast, bloggers, amateur journalists, Twitterers and Facebookers commenting on sensitive political issues - for whatever reason, with whatever motives - are much more exposed to punitive legal action than newspaper columnists are.

Should only the rich be able to have controversial views? If anything is going to suffocate the blossoming citizen media, it will be lawyers.

Bolt is being challenged under the federal government's Racial Discrimination Act. But that's hardly the only law on the books that has a damaging impact on free speech. Our politicians have a long and shameful history of using Australia's defamation laws to sue their critics - threatening someone with a defamation suit is a public relations tactic.

In Victoria, our Racial and Religious Tolerance Act, introduced in 2001, has been co-opted as a stick for religious groups to hit each other.

First, the Islamic Council of Victoria took the fundamentalist Christian Catch the Fire Ministries to court. Then a Wiccan prison inmate took the Salvation Army to court. Then the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council threatened to take the Islamic Information and Services Network of Australasia to court. That's a shabby record for a law supposed to promote tolerance, not division.

Suppressing offensive views can be counterproductive. The churches and mosques targeted by the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act were able to say their beliefs were being persecuted - attracting more followers. The victimised dissident is a hero, not a villain.

To his credit, Bolt is a prominent critic of Victoria's vilification laws. Last year, the Human Rights Consultation Committee faced the task of recommending what should appear in an Australian bill of rights. It struggled to balance our right to free speech with a new "right" demanded by some - the right to not be offended by the speech of others.

But there are an infinite number of ways people could be offended. How could we possibly prevent all outrage? You can have the right to free speech, or you can have the right to be protected by the government from the offensive speech of others. You can't have both.

There are other ways to respond to distasteful views. Refuse to buy the Herald Sun. Tell your friends to do the same. Condemn it in other opinion columns. The solution to bad speech is more speech. If something is offensive, it deserves to be condemned, loudly and often.

This week saw the first Aboriginal member of the federal House of Representatives sit in Parliament. Ken Wyatt is a Liberal. He promised to advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Parliament. His mother was [allegedly] one of the stolen generations. In his maiden speech, Wyatt thanked Kevin Rudd for the 2008 apology.

That's a genuine step towards reconciliation. Wielding the legal system as a weapon to try to silence critics isn't - no matter how offensive they might be.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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2 October, 2010

Elite rule in Britain

When Ed Miliband stood before his party faithful last week as their new leader, grinning nervously in the glare of the spotlight, did his mind flicker back to the men who preceded him?

From its very first leader, Keir Hardie, who started work at the age of just ten in the coalmines of Lanarkshire, to the perma-tanned, globe-trotting, book-flogging Tony Blair, it is safe to say that the self-described people’s party has travelled an awfully long way.

Yet listening to Mr Miliband joking awkwardly about boyhood battles with his defeated brother David, it was hard not to wonder what on earth Labour’s most famous names would have made of the state of their party.

What would self-made men such as Ernest Bevin and Jim Callaghan, who hauled themselves up by their bootstraps from poverty, think of a leadership election that asked members to choose between two privileged, Oxford-­educated brothers from North London?

What would war heroes such as Major Clement Attlee and Major Denis Healey make of an election in which neither of the leading candidates had ever held a job outside the political arena?

And what, they might well ask, does it say about the sad state of British politics that our three major parties are led by smooth ­fortysomethings who might have been cast from exactly the same mould?



Look again at the scenes of delight and despair at last week’s Labour conference, and you see not just an astonishingly incestuous story of fraternal rivalry, but a damning indictment of the collapse of opportunity in modern Britain — and a depressing reminder of the extent to which we are now governed by a tiny, closed and thoroughly narcissistic political class.

And the one characteristic they all share is an overwhelming sense of entitlement that — despite having no knowledge of the real world — they believe gives them a preordained right to rule over us.

But as genuine mobility slips further from reach, there has rarely been a greater gulf between rulers and ruled. Perhaps not since the Victorian era has the distance between the voter and the politician seemed such a chasm.

After all, Ed Miliband makes a very unconvincing spokesman for the ordinary men and women who Labour claims to defend. How many ordinary Labour ­voters grew up listening to discussions of socialist theory in their Primrose Hill drawing room? How many teenagers today are invited to review films on LBC radio, or work as interns for leading politicians, as ‘Red Ed’ did for Tony Benn?

Depressingly, however, Labour’s new leader is entirely typical of the slick, privileged and strikingly youthful men and women who now dominate our public life.

And for all Mr Miliband’s tiresome emphasis on his youth, British politics could surely do with a few more grey hairs and balding pates. David Cameron and Nick Clegg are both 43, while Ed Miliband is only 40. That makes him less than half the age of the great Liberal statesman William Gladstone, who was 82 when he led his last reforming government in 1892.

Unfashionable as it may be, there is surely much to be said for the wisdom of years. Winston Churchill, after all, was almost 66 when he answered his country’s call in 1940. He had been in Parliament for 40 years, and first entered the Cabinet in 1908 — yet it was ­precisely because he was so experienced, so seasoned, so battle-hardened, that he was the ideal man to lead our nation through its darkest and finest hours. By ­contrast, today’s politicians might as well have come straight from nursery school.

Indeed, so smooth and effortless has Mr Miliband’s rise been that when he talked last week about the rise of his ‘new generation’, he seemed to have no inkling of the value of hard-fought experience.For him, the new generation means people like his brother David, who enjoyed the same favoured education — Haverstock School in North London, a politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) degree at Oxford and a spell at a top American university.

Or people like Ed Balls — son of a professor, privately educated at Nottingham High School, PPE at Oxford and a spell at Harvard. Indeed, the closer you look, the harder it becomes to tell the members of our political class apart. Mr Balls’ wife Yvette Cooper read PPE at Oxford, too, before making the obligatory trip to Harvard.

And despite all her talk of equality, Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman is hardly a great advert for social mobility: she went to St Paul’s Girls, the expensive sister school to George Osborne’s alma mater. Amazingly, perhaps, Mr Osborne himself did not read PPE at Oxford; he read history instead. But David Cameron read PPE, although the Prime Minister will surely be too much of a gentleman to mention that while Ed Miliband only got a 2:1, he got a First.

And though Nick Clegg, perhaps showing a flash of Lib Dem eccentricity, read anthropology, not politics or history, his background is so strikingly similar it is no ­wonder that he and Mr Cameron get along so well. The son of a banker, he went to private school and Cambridge, spent his holidays as a skiing instructor and then, naturally, went off to America to study at the University of Minnesota and work as an intern at a Left-wing magazine.

There is nothing wrong with a private education, an Oxbridge training or a privileged background. Sadly, though, the fact is that at a time when social mobility has stalled, with bright, hard-working children from poor backgrounds struggling to make their way up the ladder, Britain is ­governed by a tiny political class with almost identical backgrounds, life stories and values.

There are, of course, notable exceptions. For my money, the man Labour should have chosen as their next leader was Alan Johnson, an orphan brought up in a council flat by his sister, who passed his 11-plus, went to grammar school and worked as a shelf-stacker before becoming a postman.

No doubt the former Home ­Secretary has his weaknesses. But at least people would have believed him when he claimed to understand the plight of ordinary families, and at least he could be said to embody the values of thrift, decency and hard work.

The fact is that at a time when social mobility has stalled, with bright, hard-working children from poor backgrounds struggling to make their way up the ladder, Britain is ­governed by a tiny political class with almost identical backgrounds, life stories and values

An exception: Brought up on a council estate by a single mother, educated at a local grammar school, Mr Davis became an insurance clerk, joined the Territorial Army to pay for re-taking his exams and ended up working for Tate & Lyle for 17 years. There could hardly be a better example of that dying breed, the working-class Tory MP, or a more compelling story of aspiration, ambition and social mobility — in which, you suspect, his grammar school education played a central part.

There have, of course, always been hacks and apparatchiks. Remembered today as a Tory grandee who served as Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Deputy PM, Rab Butler was only 26 when he entered Parliament in 1929, and like so many of his modern-day successors, he never held a proper job outside politics in his life. Significantly, he was denied the leader’s mantle that he felt was his by right.

But 50 or 60 years ago, the stories of Alan Johnson and David Davis would have seemed rather less exceptional than they do today.

Four out of ten Labour MPs came from manual working-class families: Attlee’s deputy PM Herbert Morrison was the son of a Lambeth police constable, while Labour’s deputy leader in the late 1950s, Jim Griffiths, was one of ten children born to a Welsh blacksmith, left school at 13 and took night classes while working as a miner.

And even the Old Etonian Harold Macmillan’s front bench boasted the talents of Reginald Bevins, a former Royal Artillery gunner who was one of five children born into a working-class Liverpool family.

Indeed, the ultimate indictment of today’s political system is that instead of becoming more open, it actually seems to be going backwards, becoming ever more narrow, privileged and exclusive.

Today’s House of Commons is stuffed full of Rab Butlers, thanks largely to the efforts of the party machines to secure safe seats for privileged youths such as the Tory millionaire Zac Goldsmith in Richmond and Labour’s Tristram Hunt, the Left-wing historian, in Stoke. And, sadly, the Alan Johnsons and David Davises are becoming all too rare.

Wasn’t it ever thus? In a word: no. Turn the clock back 60 years, and the political class looked very different. At the head of the Labour Party in 1950 was the modest, unassuming Clement Attlee, who had enjoyed a privileged background and a Haileybury education, but learned the harsh realities of life while working with deprived children in the East End of London.

Like many politicians of his day, Attlee knew the rigours of war at first hand, serving with the South Lancashire Regiment in Gallipoli. Later he fought in Iraq, where he was badly wounded by shrapnel, and ended up in the trenches on the Western Front.

Attlee’s great collaborator Ernest Bevin had a very different life story. Born to a poor family in rural Somerset, he never knew his father, left school at just 11 and had to read the daily paper to his illiterate relatives. And to people who met him as a young man, the idea that this West Country labourer would one day become Foreign Secretary would have seemed laughable.

Yet this was the man who not only reorganised British industry to win World War II, but helped to establish Nato and the United Nations, built the post-war Western alliance against Soviet Communism and pushed for Britain to develop its own nuclear deterrent.

As his friend, opponent and wartime colleague Winston Churchill admiringly put it, Bevin’s ‘manliness, his common sense, his rough simplicity, sturdiness and kind heart, easy geniality and generosity’ were the envy of the Commons. Bevin had learned the value of hard work and sacrifice: when he invoked the British people, he knew what he was talking about.

What Bevin would make of his latter-day successors can only be imagined. Perhaps one day somebody, too, will wax lyrical about Ed Miliband’s manliness, sturdiness and common sense. But I would not stake my house on it.

The crucial point, though, is that Bevin was not alone in bringing a wide experience of life to the political arena. When he looked around the House of Commons in the 1940s and 1950s, he saw young men like Denis Healey who had orchestrated the Allied landings at Anzio, or Ted Heath who had commanded an artillery battery in Northern France.

Both Healey and Heath were from modest backgrounds; both had worked their way up by their own efforts; both, crucially, had benefited from a grammar school education. And within a few years they would be joined by another ambitious young politician who was to leave an even greater mark on our national story.

Margaret Thatcher’s background could hardly have been more different from the gilded intellectual cage inhabited by the Miliband brothers. The daughter of a Methodist grocer in Grantham, Lincolnshire, she won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls, a local grammar school, where she first established a reputation for ferocious hard work.

Shamefully, critics often held her background against her: in the 1980s, the philosopher Mary ­Warnock mocked Mrs Thatcher’s accent, clothes and hair as ‘not exactly vulgar, just low’.

The tragedy is that at a time when ordinary families are feeling the pinch, and when the headlines are full of austerity, pain and sacrifice, our political class has never been more out of touch

But unlike the boarding school-educated Baroness Warnock, Mrs Thatcher had worked for everything she achieved. It was sheer brains and effort, not family ­connections, that drove her from Grantham to Downing Street.

And her belief in the virtues of hard work, inspired by her simple Methodist faith and grammar school education, lay at the heart of her political outlook. Her one aim, she said, was to ‘change Britain from a dependent to a self-­reliant society, from a give-it-to-me to a do-it-yourself nation’.

Margaret Thatcher, the champion of free markets, and Ernest Bevin, the soul of old-fashioned Labour, might make odd ideological bedfellows. But what they had in ­common was precisely what is missing from so many of today’s political class — a set of basic values, a love of effort and hard work, and a rounded awareness of life and its perils, inspired by their background, education and experience.

Unlike today’s political leaders, they knew what life was like for ­millions of ordinary people for whom the gilded splendour of the Palace of Westminster seemed as distant as the craters of the moon.

Like their colleagues Aneurin Bevan, a former Welsh coal miner, or Willie Whitelaw, a tank commander in Normandy, they had learned the lessons of life from bitter experience, not in the seminar rooms of Harvard.

‘I get it,’ Mr Miliband said over and over again last week, just as his spin doctors had instructed him. But you wonder whether, given his cloistered background, his lack of experience and his narrow horizons, he can ever really understand the hopes and fears of millions of people in Warrington, Welshpool and ­Wolverhampton, people who never had his good fortune or family connections.

The Labour Party may call itself the people’s party. But as the political class celebrate their victory, and the hard realities of life slip ever ­further from view, you wonder whether its nickname has ever seemed less appropriate.

SOURCE






'Christian' Easter eggs snubbed by stores claims Church Of England

Supermarkets are reluctant to stock specially branded Easter eggs which mention Jesus on the packaging, the Church of England said yesterday. The chocolate eggs are being produced by the Church next Easter after it found that none of the 80million on sale this year had a religious theme.

The packaging around the £3.99 Real Easter Egg carries a panel explaining how Christians believe that Christ was crucified on Good Friday and rose again on Easter Sunday. ‘Many believe that chocolate eggs represent the boulder that sealed his tomb,’ the box tells buyers.

And, amid the more typical art work showing butterflies, bunnies and chickens, the packaging depicts a green hill with three crosses on it.

But in its negotiations with stockists, the Church has found that some large chains are resistant to stocking such overtly religious products for children. A CofE spokesman said: ‘Despite the obvious demand, not all UK supermarkets are planning to stock the egg next year.’

The criticism comes in the wake of the Pope’s state visit to Britain last month in which he attacked ‘aggressive secularism’ and set out his dismay at attempts to stifle the celebration of Christian festivals such as Christmas and Easter ‘in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none’.

Last night, two of the supermarket chains that have not yet made a decision said they were not opposed in principle. A Waitrose spokesman said: ‘We have asked the supplier for more information on this new product but in principle it is something that we would be really interested in.’ At the Co-op, a spokesman said: ‘No decision about stocking the egg has been made as we have not yet finalised our plans for our Easter range.’

The CofE spokesman said: ‘There are over 80million chocolate Easter eggs sold each year in the UK and, incredibly, not one mentions the Christian understanding of Easter on the box.’

The Church of England believes demand for religious Easter eggs will come from: seven million people who are at least occasional churchgoers; seven million who support the Fairtrade organisation which is supplying the chocolate for its egg; and from 8,000 church schools, which will encourage pupils to buy them.

The eggs, produced by a spin-off company from the CofE’s Manchester diocese, will benefit two charities: Traidcraft Exchange, which helps Third World farmers; and Baby Lifeline, which supplies hospitals with equipment and gives training to medical staff.

SOURCE




More "noble savages" who weren't so noble

It was not so very long ago that many archaeologists regarded the Ancestral Puebloan people–or the Anasazi, as researchers once called them–as a rather peaceful, mystical group of astronomers, artists, priests and farmers. They based this idea largely on their observations of modern Puebloan peoples: the Hopi, the Zuni and others who lived in traditional pueblos, such as Taos, and who often lived quiet lives of ritual and spirituality.

But in the early 90s, some Southwestern archaeologists began questioning this received wisdom. David Wilcox, an archaeologist at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, hypothesized that the rulers of Chaco Canyon, a massive Ancestral Puebloan site, commanded a small army and demanded tribute from their southern neighbors, slaughtering any who didn’t comply. As evidence, Wilcox pointed to charnel pits excavated in dozens of Ancestral Puebloan sites dating to the late 10th and early 11th century C.E.: these pits looked like mass graves from a war zone.

At first most Southwestern archaeologists just shook their head and smiled at Wilcox’s ideas. But evidence of very nasty times in the ancient Southwest began to accumulate. Physical anthropologist Christy Turner, now a professor emeritus at Arizona State University, and others detected traces of extreme violence and cannibalism on human bones unearthed at 40 different Ancestral Puebloan sites. Such acts of cannibalism, Wilcox suggested, were political messages, deliberate desecration of the dead as a warning to others.

This month, researchers added yet more dark shading to the picture in a paper published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. At a site known as Sacred Ridge in Colorado, Jason Chuipka, an archaeologist at Woods Canyon Archaeological Consultants, and his colleagues unearthed 14,882 human skeletal fragments–the remains of deliberately mutilated Ancestral Puebloan inhabitants–as well as two-headed axes smeared with human blood residues. The dead dated to the late 8th or early 9th century, a time when the first Ancestral Puebloan villages were forming.

To Chuipka and his co-author James Potter, an archaeologist at SWCA Environmental Consultants in Broomfield, Colorado, the evidence suggested that the inhabitants of Sacred Ridge–men, women and children–were singled out for a particularly terrible form of violence: ethnic conflict.

So what to make of all this? Why such a radical shift in our vision of the Ancestral Puebloan people? When I began thinking about this, I came up with two things. First of all, physical anthropologists today know much more about the osteological indicators of warfare and cannibalism than they did thirty years ago. So they have a much clearer idea of what to look for.

But the second thing goes to the very heart of archaeology itself. Journalists and other members of the public ask archaeologists all the time to explain what various artifacts and data mean. We don’t really want to hear about 14,882 bone fragments. What we want to know is what happened to all those bodies and all those people. And our insatiable curiosity constantly forces archaeologists to interpret their findings, to make a story of them.

So archaeologists do what anybody else would do–they look for analogies in modern life. In the early 1970s, for example, when the Vietnam War raged, many researchers hypothesized that the collapse of the Classic Maya civilization was due to extreme warfare. In the 1980s and 1990s, they pointed to environmental causes, such as soil erosion. And today, many researchers ascribe the collapse to climate change, specifically a series of devastating droughts.

Probably all these factors played a part in the fall of the classic Maya civilization. But I find it interesting to think about the ways in which contemporary history contributes to prevailing archaeological hypotheses and interpretations. I personally think it’s very possible that some Ancestral Puebloan people were victims of ethnic cleansing. But would the archaeological community have taken this idea so seriously, had it not been for the intense media coverage of ethnic conflicts and cleansing in places like Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan in recent years?

SOURCE





Conservatives need to insist that endangered children be protected

Because the Left won't do it -- says Jeremy Sammut, a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies (Australia)

THE state has a responsibility to protect children from inadequate parents.

For people on the Right, child protection can be a difficult issue. Those who identify with liberal traditions place a premium on limited state intrusion into the lives of individuals. However, child protection reform that upholds the independent rights of children needs to be on their policy agenda.

The clientele of child protection services consists predominantly of members of the underclass, that proportion of Australians who are long-term welfare dependent and have a range of welfare-dependence exacerbated behavioural issues, such as domestic violence and substance abuse.

The complex problems these families experience include the inability to rear children adequately.

In too many child welfare cases the presumed right of dysfunctional parents to retain custody of children is elevated above the best interests of children.

While encouraging parents to change their behaviour and meet children's needs has always been a part of modern child protection, the pendulum has swung too far towards trying to fix broken families and giving parents almost limitless opportunities to change.

A culture of non-intervention in family situations has developed in the state bureaucracies in charge of child protection services.

The statutory investigation of child welfare reports by caseworkers trained to assess whether a child is in need of court-approved removal from the family home has been marginalised in favour of providing support services (drug counselling, parenting programs, home visits) to families.

Instead of focusing on traditional child protection work, social services departments provide parent-centred rather than child-centred services to allow biological parents to retain custody of children, even where children are identified as being in danger of harm.

Child protection failures create the next generation of dysfunctional parents. The paradox, and the dilemma for those on the Right, is that greater intervention is needed in the lives of dependent members of the community to break the intergenerational cycle of neglect and abuse and save future generations.

The broader cultural issue is whether the Right has the will to defend core community standards or whether the questionable perspectives of the Left will continue to dictate social values in child protection.

When the welfare of children is at stake, it is not too harsh to hold parents accountable for bad behaviour in circumstances that contravene John Stuart Mill's principle that liberty should be interfered with only to "prevent harm to others". Mill was one of the 19th-century progenitors of the progressive idea that a child had the right to enjoy their full liberties and opportunities as a future citizen. In On Liberty, he argued that parents who failed to fulfil their "sacred duties" towards their children were guilty of "a moral crime both against the unfortunate offspring and against society . . . if the parent does not fulfil this obligation, the state ought to see it fulfilled".

However, the moral and social judgments that child protection depends on are beyond the comprehension of those who subscribe to leftist cultural politics.

In an article published in June last year in the Australian Journal of Politics and History, Kate Murphy, Marian Quartly and Denise Cuthbert accused those who frowned on drug-addled parenting of supporting the "conservative family policy of the Howard era".

This would be bad enough if it only reflected the dated ideology pervading the social services sector, which is that removing children punishes poor parents who are victims of structural socioeconomic injustice.

The authors' views also reflect postmodern values that cast child protection as a moral panic deployed to authorise the social surveillance and cultural oppression of the powerless and excluded.

The notion given credence by Murphy, Quartly and Cuthbert is that child welfare laws hold parents to socially constructed behavioural standards to buttress the hegemony of traditional bourgeois family values. Treating parental intravenous drug use in a relativist manner - as if drug-addled parenting is a legitimate lifestyle choice - is wrong and dangerous because it denies the reality of child abuse and neglect.

The idea that welfare-dependent heroin addicts have a right to keep their children reveals moral and ideological confusion. Those on the Right need not hesitate out of misplaced doctrinal concerns to make such judgments about the rights of parents as against the rights of children.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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1 October, 2010

Anti-Islamist Dutch Politician, Facing Trial for ‘Inciting Hatred,’ Secures His Party’s Role in New Government

Days before anti-Islamist Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ trial for “inciting hatred and discrimination” begins, his political party has reached an agreement with two others on forming the country’s next government.

Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) reportedly will not hold any cabinet posts, but it will lend support in parliament to a minority coalition government headed by the center-right Liberal Party (VVD), whose leader Mark Rutte is set to become prime minister.

“Who would have thought, a couple of years ago, that the Freedom Party would have a huge amount of influence in government?” Wilders said on Tuesday evening.

The relatively rapid rise of the PVV is seen as a reflection of hardening sentiment in the Netherlands against radical Islam, triggered in part by the 2004 murder by a Muslim extremist of controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had focused his criticism on Islam.

About six percent of the Netherlands’ population – one million out of a total of 16 million – is Muslim, mostly of Turkish and Moroccan origin.

Six years ago Wilders, then a VVD lawmaker, split from the party because he opposed its support for Turkey joining the European Union. A one-man campaign grew into the new Freedom Party which in 2006 elections stunned political observers by winning nine seats in the 150-seat Tweede Kamer legislature.

That achievement was replicated in June, when Wilders’ party jumped to 24 seats, making it the third-largest in the Tweede Kamer.

As the election left neither the front-runner VVD nor the second-placed center-left Labor Party with enough support to govern alone, lengthy coalition negotiations followed.

Some 110 days later they delivered an agreement late Tuesday involving VVD, PVV and the Christian Democrats (CDA), the center-right party which led the outgoing governing coalition but saw its parliamentary representation halved in June, dropping from first to fourth place.

On Monday, Wilders goes on trial in the Amsterdam District Court for allegedly “inciting hatred and discrimination,” charges arising his from statements and activism against radical Islam.

In 2008 he drew protests from Muslims around the world after producing a short documentary film that interspersed passages from the Quran with footage of terror attacks and clips of Muslim clerics endorsing violence.

He had already provoked controversy a year earlier by calling for the Quran to be outlawed in the Netherlands, on the grounds that verses instruct Muslims “to oppress, persecute or kill Christians, Jews, dissidents and non-believers, to beat and rape women and to establish an Islamic state by force.”

An appeal court ruled last year that Wilders’ statements constituted “hate speech” and instructed prosecutors to indict him.

The prospect of a trial has evidently not dampened his fervor. Wilders delivered a rousing speech at a Sept. 11 rally in New York opposing the “Ground Zero mosque,” and told the Associated Press over the summer he has plans to launch an international “freedom alliance,” beginning in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany and France.

More HERE





Netherlands MPs do deal to ban burqa

THE Netherlands will ban the burqa, anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders has said following the announcement of a pact to form a minority coalition government backed by his party. "There will also be a burqa ban," Mr Wilders told journalists in The Hague, announcing measures agreed on by three parties negotiating to form a new government.

The measures, which seek to cut government spending by 18 billion euros ($25 billion) by 2015, should also halve the number of immigrants who enter the Netherlands, the politician said.

"A new wind will blow in the Netherlands," Wilders said, standing alongside presumed prime minister-in-waiting Mark Rutte, who leads the pro-business VVD party, and Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) leader Maxime Verhagen - the two parties set to be in government.

Mr Wilders' PVV will remain outside but will provide the minority cabinet with the majority it needs to pass decisions through parliament in return for a voice in policy formation.

Negotiations have been ongoing since June 9 elections to reach a balance between Mr Wilders' socialist policies and strict budget cuts promised by the VVD, which narrowly won the poll with 31 out of 150 parliamentary seats.

In return for supporting austerity measures Mr Wilders, who campaigns for a ban on Muslim immigration, wants to stop the building of new mosques and tax Muslim head scarves, was to get a say in immigration and other policies.

CDA party members, deeply divided over cooperation with Mr Wilders, have yet to approve the new accord which will be debated at a congress on Saturday.

The plan, titled "Freedom and responsibility" proposes cutting the Netherlands' contribution to the European Union by one billion euros, shaving a further billion euros off development cooperation and 1.2 billion euros off health care costs, reducing the number of MPs from 150 to 100 and the number of senators from 75 to 50.

The longest chapter of the accord, seven pages of the 46-page document, is devoted to "immigration". "Important reforms will be carried out in the Netherlands," Mr Rutte said in presenting the pact. "We want to give the country back to the working Dutch citizen."

Ms Verhagen described the deal as a "very good governing agreement. I am convinced that it is an agreement that every Christian Democrat will be able to identify with."

SOURCE






British supermarket bosses order boy aged TWO to take down hood 'for security reasons'

The Brits just love exercising bureaucratic power to annoy, hamper or hurt others



The parents of a two-year-old boy have accused their local Co-op store of a 'total lack of common sense and flexibility' after being asked by a member of staff to take their son's anorak hood down inside the shop. Corey Read's family were faced with the bizarre security demand - said to be a policy for all Co-op customers - when they visited the store in Norwich.

The boy's grandfather Alan Barker, 41, said today: 'I'm so angry at the Co-op's attitude, especially as the weather is getting worse and Corey has to stay warm to avoid getting ear infections.'

His mother Stacie Read, 23, explained they had gone to the Co-op along with her five-month-old baby son Finley Read, husband Shane Read, 22, and uncle Chris Read, 21.

Mrs Read, who lives nearby said: 'We'd just gone into the shop to get a few things for our Sunday roast. 'Corey had been complaining of earache, so he had the hood of his coat up. 'We were just near the door when the manager said, 'Do you mind pulling his hood down? 'He told us, 'It's just that eight-year-olds will moan that he's allowed his hood up but they are not.' 'It was especially cold that day and the doors are always open in the shop.'

She added: 'I didn't want Corey getting cold as he is prone to ear infections.

'We went into Tesco next door straight afterwards and the security guard there didn't say a thing about Corey's hood.' It is understood that because the incident happened on a Sunday the store's regular manager was not on duty.

Hoods, hats and other types of headgear are banned by many shops due to fears over crime and anti-social behaviour as it makes it harder to identify offenders using CCTV cameras.

Mrs Read said her husband Shane, a factory worker, was furious but she urged him not to become involved in a row over the issue. Later that day Corey's grandfather, Mr Barker, phoned the store to complain and spoke to the duty manager.

Mr Barker, of Bowthorpe, Norwich, said: 'He told me, We have to do this'. 'He said, We have 90-year-olds who come in and we have to tell them the same thing. 'This is a bad area and we have a lot of stealing.

'Corey is quite a skinny little chap and feels the cold,' Mr Barker said. 'He's just two years old and he's hardly going to rob the store.' He added: 'We go in all the local shops and that's the first time that something like this has ever happened to us.'

The company has now launched an urgent investigation into the incident. Miriam Harrup, spokeswoman for East of England Co-op, said today: 'We are investigating what happened.' She went on to explain that the company had a general policy of asking customers to remove helmets and hoods for security reasons but that a common-sense approach was usually taken.

SOURCE





The End of Civility

Herbert London

In a recent conversation with a vendor, who I had not spoken to at any point in my attenuated life, my first name was employed. I realized at that moment that I now live in egalitarian fantasy land where familiarity is expected. I recoiled; afterall, this was a raid on my privacy. But it was more than that; in a strange way this was the latest manifestation of civility’s demise.

There have been several recent examples that confirm this opinion.

As a resident of the Financial Community in Manhattan I remember the 9/11 amputation of the World Financial Center as a scar in my memory bank. Those who lost their lives on the fateful day a decade ago made the former World Trade Center site hallowed ground. As a consequence, I have been outspoken about the plan to build a mosque in the shadow of this location, a decision I regard as a stain on the memory of those killed by radical Muslim conspirators.

Whether my position is correct or not however is besides the point. I have been smeared by Mayor Bloomberg as a bigot and compared to nineteenth century Know Nothings and lynch mobs from the Jim Crow era. This is a calumny. Moreover, it is a breakdown of civility. If the mayor is entitled to First Amendment rights, why should they be denied to me?

It is instructive that in this era disagreements lead to insults. Debate and discussion have been relegated to anachronistic concerns. And a mayor who should know better can not contain his ideological fervor and disregard for the opinion of others.

Similarly, several recent books contend that manners harbor tacit power relationships. Courtesy, argue these authors, undermines equality. What these authors really mean is that challenging manners is an appropriate expression of the lowest common denominator. A refusal to cover your mouth when coughing in a crowded subway train is a provocation, a sign that one doesn’t care whether he infects you with his germs. Yet what was once assumed, now must be explained.

For most of my adult life hats were passé, a sartorial expression of an earlier generation. But recently hats appear to be back in fashion. However, in the past, a gentleman took off his hat in-doors. He might even doff his hat in a crowded elevator. Now hats are an adornment, never taken off in or out of doors. Baseball caps are worn as rally caps – upside down, backwards or on the side. Rather than worn rakishly, the hat is worn clownishly. Some might call this inventive; I call it absurd.

Even more absurd is reality TV with programs like “Jersey Shore” where moral filters are voided. The expectation is that the principals will say whatever is on their minds, mostly sex, body piercing, drinking and getting high. This is not only TV for the mindless, it is TV for the morally vacuous.

Then there is language contamination. So many people I meet think that it is appropriate to use the “f – bomb” as an adjectival expression for any deeply felt emotion. Sometimes I think that without that word, expression wouldn’t be possible. In part, this is the egalitarian spirit gone wild. It can also be explained by an impoverishment of language skill. But mostly, I believe, it is a habit, a reflex that suggests civil discourse is unnecessary. This is not solely the province of sailors any longer. Middle class housewives, high school students, salesmen all partake. The “f” contagion is ubiquitous.

Then there is my pet peeve: drivers who insist on being in the left lane even though they will not accelerate beyond 30 miles per hour in 55 mph speed zones. These hogs of the road do not acknowledge passing rules, nor does traffic congestion bother them. They are oblivious to the rules of the road and, most importantly, do not care about others on the highway.

These illustrations are merely a few of the ways civility is in dissuetude. Clearly societies do not rise and fall on the basis of civility. But life is simply more pleasant when conversation is civil and people are courteous to one another. If this seems exaggerated or that I’m off track, ask a subway rider how he feels about the breakdown in civility. I hope he doesn’t drop the f-bomb in response.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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Examining political correctness around the world and its stifling of liberty and sense. Chronicling a slowly developing dictatorship


BIO for John Ray


Sarah Palin is undoubtedly the most politically incorrect person in American public life so she will be celebrated on this blog


I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.


I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take chidren away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass


Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"


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


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


Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."


The Supreme Court of the United States is now and always has been a judicial abomination. Its guiding principles have always been political rather than judicial. It is not as political as Stalin's courts but its respect for the constitution is little better. Some recent abuses: The "equal treatment" provision of the 14th amendment was specifically written to outlaw racial discrimination yet the court has allowed various forms of "affirmative action" for decades -- when all such policies should have been completely stuck down immediately. The 2nd. amendment says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed yet gun control laws infringe it in every State in the union. The 1st amedment provides that speech shall be freely exercised yet the court has upheld various restrictions on the financing and display of political advertising. The court has found a right to abortion in the constitution when the word abortion is not even mentioned there. The court invents rights that do not exist and denies rights that do.


Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".


One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.


It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.


The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds