More multiculturalism in Britain

An Eritrean imprisoned and raped a woman EIGHT YEARS after he dodged charges for similar sex attack due to lack of evidence



An asylum seeker who escaped justice after he imprisoned and raped a 20-year-old student in his flat went on to commit another brutal sex attack eight years later.

Ybrah Haylemaryam, 26, who entered the country illegally from Eritrea in 2003, grabbed his first victim as she was walking home from a night out and forced her back to his home in Hull.  The desperate young woman eventually managed flee after he went to the bathroom.

But although the victim reported the rape in 2004, and Haylemaryam was interviewed, prosecutors said there was not enough evidence for him to be charged with the offence.

Eight years later he carried out another attack on a young mother who had been on a date with him after she spurned his advances.  Her baby was in the next room during the horrific three-hour ordeal.

The crime led to Haylemaryam's previous case being reopened and he was charged with four counts of rape, two counts of false imprisonment and three sexual assaults on the two victims.

Today, he was found guilty by a jury and jailed for 20 years at Hull Crown Court.

But police believe more women may have suffered at the hands of Haylemaryam in the intervening years and appealed for any potential victims to come forward.

His first victim, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said today: 'Although I’m really happy with the sentence, I’m angry that this has happened to someone else and he has been allowed to do that.  'I was upset at the time that it wasn’t taken any further but I could understand the reasons because it was my word against his.'

Now 29 and working in social care, the victim expressed her shock when she discovered during the trial that Haylemaryam was living near to her at the time of the attack.

She said: 'I can’t believe he lived just a few streets away from me, that really shocked me.  'I don’t know what I’d have done if I had seen him in the street in the years after my case. I would have probably froze in my steps.

'He pestered me and all of a sudden just flipped, and the other victim described to me exactly the same what he did to me to her. I thought he was going to kill me.

'I feel lucky that I did get out, and I have got to thank the specialist support and counselling I have had from everyone.

'I hope I get a bit of closure now, but it’s the fear of someone doing that to you again that never goes away.  'If he was deported, then I won’t have to worry about him ever again. I’m hoping to now move on with my life, knowing he is behind bars.'

Judge Mark Bury called Haylemaryam a ‘dangerous offender’.  'You have been convicted by a jury of two sex attacks on two different women, eight years apart,' Judge Bury said. 'You pose a significant risk to members of the public, and you are a dangerous offender.

'(In the case of the first victim) you took full advantage of a vulnerable victim and you were a stranger to her.

'Once inside your flat, you were aggressive to her and raped her. She was terrified, and thankfully managed to run away.

'She was very distressed in the witness box after being shown photos of the flat where the rape took place, and the memories came flooding back to her.

'The second victim’s ordeal lasted three hours, and you forced her against her will.'

Judge Bury said it is unlikely that Haylemaryam will be returned to his home country of Eritrea upon his release, and could possibly be deported to South Africa.

Paul Genney, defending, said that Haylemaryam was on his way to coming to terms with both rapes, which he initially denied at trial.

Detective Inspector Alan Bentham said: 'Officers from Humberside Police’s public protection unit are appealing to any further women who may have been subjected to attacks from Ybrah Haylemaryam to contact them.

'Haylemaryam has been convicted of numerous rapes and sexual assaults against two women.

'We praise the victims in this case for having the courage to come forward, having been put through horrendous ordeals by Haylemaryam, who falsely imprisoned them and subjected them to violent, sexual attacks.'

SOURCE





Censoring the 'Anti-Gay' Viewpoint

The media elites have never been less interested in objectivity than they are right now on "gay marriage." They don't wear rainbow flags on their lapels when they appear on television, but the coverage speaks for itself.

Even liberals are admitting the obvious. The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) studied a sample of almost 500 news stories from March to May and admitted "statements of support dominate" the daily narrative.

"The study lends credence to conservative charges that the nation's news media have championed the issue of same-sex marriage at the expense of objectivity," media reporter Brian Stelter asserted at The New York Times. "Others have argued that news organizations are right not to overly emphasize opposition to what many see as a core civil rights issue."

That's very euphemistic. Some argue reporters are "not to overly emphasize" opposition? No, many liberals believe whoever still refuses to endorse "gay marriage" has as much moral authority as the Ku Klux Klan.

Their voice should be ignored.

In many corners of the liberal media, the space for a social conservative to argue against "marriage equality" is vanishing before our eyes. It becomes twice as difficult the more and more anchors and reporters come out and declare themselves gay, and then the gay lobby expects those journalists to perform with perfect obedience to their agenda.

In their somewhat strange roulette-wheel method of analyzing a list of rotating media outlets depending on which day it is, PEJ analysts still found 47 percent of stories "included twice as many statements in support of same-sex marriage than in opposition. Less than a fifth of that number (9 percent) included more statements in opposition." They found zero difference in tilt between "objective" news stories and opinion articles.

In their scattershot sample, the network evening and morning news shows never produced a story with more conservatives than leftists, and "all three of the major cable networks, for instance, had more stories with significantly more supportive statements than opposing, including Fox News."

The headline on their report is "News Coverage Conveys Strong Momentum for Same-Sex Marriage." A very young or inexperienced media observer might argue that the momentum came before the media, that the media are only catching the recent wave of "justice." That would ignore how the liberal media have favored the gay agenda for decades.

In recent years, the promotion of homosexuality has gone beyond the "news" programs and became heavily entrenched in network entertainment shows, with entire programs devoted to gay characters and their struggle to overcome the alleged ignorance and oppression of religious villains. This easily explains why so many young people are dramatically pro-gay marriage in the opinion polls.

So if you're a religious conservative favoring traditional marriage, your media choices are between cultural poison and diluted cultural poison. The fierce debate within the media establishment is whether the social conservatives should be allowed to speak at all.

The official gay censorship lobbies — from the Orwellian-named "GLAAD" to the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association — define "fairness and accuracy" as being stories that try to scrape "fairness" away, treating opposition like used gum on someone's shoe. GLAAD created what they call the "Commentator Accountability Project" designed to discourage reporters and TV bookers from booking "hate" guests.

"Progressive" censors have confronted MSNBC's Chris Matthews in public and urged him to stop booking Family Research Council president Tony Perkins because of his "hate speech," like calling gay activists "vile."

The left-wing lobby calling itself "Faithful America" tried to take out an ad on MSNBC urging Matthews to keep Perkins off TV: "People of faith are speaking out, demanding MSNBC stop hosting hate."

Their argument was based on the fact that the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center officially designated FRC and other conservative Christian organizations as "hate groups." The SPLC designation became for them a handy blacklist to instruct the liberal media on which guests to ban. For unhinged (but unsuccessful) shooter Floyd Corkins, the SPLC created a hit list of people to kill at the FRC and two other conservative outfits.

To quote GLAAD censor Aaron McQuade, "Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of speech." If they prevail, the "consequences" of speaking in opposition to the gay lobby equals zero bookings. In their dreamland, every "news" segment looks like the usual MSNBC "Lean Forward" gay segment where everyone embraces the equality and fluidity of "sexual preference."

But they're not censors, they insist.

SOURCE






A Flagrant Feminist Failure

Feminism as a political cause is on such wobbly knees that it must rely on charges of rampant sexism that have no basis in reality. The current Exhibit A is "Think Progress" blogger Alyssa Rosenberg, who surely scrunched up her face in disgust as she wrote the headline "Women Are Half Of Video Gamers, So Where Are The Female Video Game Characters?"

Serious long-term video game fans should laugh at Rosenberg's ignorance and laziness. This headline had all the style and finesse of a belly flop into an empty swimming pool.

To document the first half of the headline, she referred to a new report on demographics from the Entertainment Software Association, which found that women 18 and older make up 31 percent of the video game-playing population. Another study released by Magid Advisors found that 70 percent of women between the ages of 12 and 24 play video games. The study also found 61 percent of women between the ages of 45 and 64 also play games, compared to 57 percent of men in that age group.

The videogame culture has evolved, and there are many more female "gamers" now. But surveys counting more female "gamers" are very broad, reflecting that anyone who occasionally plays "Angry Birds" on their smart phone gets counted as a "gamer."

At least there's more evidence on the audience than on the silly second half, the question "Where are the Female Video Game Characters?"

Rosenberg turned to feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, who reported that the makers of the new Xbox One console were harassed at the recent E3 electronic-entertainment expo for failing to promote games with female characters (which in itself isn't evidence of a lack of female characters). But for Rosenberg, this apparently underscored "why it's so hard to convince the branches of the entertainment industry that they ought to try harder to offer up female characters and characters of color."

What's hard is to get Rosenberg to try a simple Google search. Type in "female characters in video games" and you're sent to a Wikipedia page where it reports on 110 entries on female characters, and that's only a fraction of them.

Just how wrong is Rosenberg? Even her ally Sarkeesian admits in one of her YouTube video lectures that "we have seen a moderate increase in the number of playable female characters."

In many "role player" games, characters can be customized by their gamers; and in many games, there is the option for a female character. Take the popular action game series "Mass Effect," where the Commander Shepard character can be either male or female. The game's manufacturer, BioWare, boasted in 2007 how its female fighter was "very strong, in a way you'd expect from a real-life military officer. She's not a caricature of the idea of role-playing as a female, but instead she's very impressive as a strong female character that's sensitive yet extremely confident and assertive."

BioWare even labored to appease the loony "Think Progress" crowd by offering "same-sex romance options" for Commander Shepard regardless of gender in "Mass Effect 3."

Many role-player game series these days offer female protagonists, including "Dragon Age," "Dragon's Dogma," "Elder Scrolls, "Fable," "Fallout" and "Saints Row," as well as "Halo 4." Most if not all Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) games (including the popular "World of Warcraft" and "Star Wars: The Old Republic") also have female-character options.

Fighting female protagonists aren't remotely new:

--Even non-gamers remember "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," which debuted in 1996. Lara Croft was played by Angelina Jolie in a 2001 movie. The game series is still popular.

--The TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" inspired an Xbox video game version in 2002. Before that, there was a "Buffy" game for Nintendo Game Boy Color in 2000.

--Joanna Dark is the protagonist of the "Perfect Dark" series, which debuted in 2000. She's nicknamed "Perfect" in honor of her "flawless performance in training tests."

--Jill Valentine appeared as a playable protagonist in the U.S. police force in the first version of "Resident Evil" in 1996, and many versions (including movies) thereafter.

--Samus Aran was the first popular female action star in the game "Metroid," which was first issued in 1986 and remains a popular character over a quarter-century later. The creators were inspired by Sigourney Weaver's character in the movie "Alien."

Angry feminists can certainly criticize how many female characters are scantily clad and designed for sex appeal. They could argue that too many female characters not listed above are merely damsels in distress. They could argue that violent video games normalize or trivialize violence against women.

But that's not what Rosenberg argued. She suggested female characters were nearly nonexistent. That, like so much of feminist boilerplate, is fraudulent.

SOURCE






Free Speech Goes Down to Defeat in Australia

Student newspaper members at Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra have recently learned the hard way how various Muslims do not accept criticism and condemnation like adherents of other faiths. Amidst the ecumenical satire of ANU's Woroni, the outrage and disciplinary threats provoked by the school newspaper's mocking of Islam suggests that this faith shall enjoy a privileged position among all beliefs.

As the Woroni editors explained on the newspaper website on May 26, 2013, the "'Advice from Religion' infographic on the back page" of the year's Edition 5 from April 18 "caused a flurry of activity." This infographic mocking Islam "was the fifth in a series that satirized facets of different religions; chronologically, Catholicism, Scientology, Mormonism, and Judaism." Many readers "condemned the piece as insulting and offensive to Islam and to religion in general." The editors acknowledged being "accustomed to receiving heated feedback," but "in this instance the extent of interference" by university officials "was unprecedented."

The day after publication, ANU Chancellery members met with Woroni's entire editorial board to discuss a "formal complaint submitted by the International Students Department" (ISD). As the Chancellery later stated to Woroni, the Islamic infographic violated "University rules" and Australian Press Council (APC) principles. The Chancellery added that the "University has a large international footprint and is mindful of maintaining its reputation of providing a welcoming environment for a diverse student and academic population." Referencing the 2005 Danish Muhammad caricatures and September 15, 2012, Muslim protests against the Innocence of Muslims film in Sydney that turned violent, Chancellery officials expressed concern about ANU's reputation and security.

To Chancellery calls for an apology and the infographic's official retraction, Woroni reacted "in a similar manner" to past complaints. A published "apology" would follow "to any readers who felt victimized... stressing" the infographic's "satirical" intent. The subsequent April 19, 2013, Woroni public response expressed these sentiments and denied any intention "to make anybody feel uncomfortable."

Yet the Chancellery remained unappeased. Regular uploading of Edition 5 as a PDF to the Woroni website archive and Facebook pages prompted a second meeting with Woroni editors and the three infographic authors. The Chancellery therein warned that the continued presence online of the Edition 5 PDF would lead to disciplinary action under Section 3.1(b) of the ANU Discipline Rules condemning as "misconduct" behavior that "unreasonably hinders other persons in the pursuit of their studies in the University or in participation in the life of the University." These disciplinary measures, along with threats to Woroni's ANU student funding, prompted removal of the back page from the Edition

As The Australian reported (subscription for original story required), the infographic at the origins of the controversy asked from a mockingly Islamic perspective "How should I value women?" The "answers referenced Aisha, the prophet Mohammed's nine-year-old wife, and described the 72 'houris' -- women depicted in the Koran as large-bosomed virgins who are a reward in paradise -- as a 'rape fantasy'." The Australian added that someone from ISD effectively told one of the authors, Jamie Freestone, that he did not "understand the seriousness of this. In Pakistan, people get shot for this kind of thing."

Yet, as the May 26 explanation indicated, Woroni "regularly features material that is challenging, and even at times confronting," befitting universities as "forums to critique ideas and beliefs." Edition 1's premiere backpage "Advice from Religion" infographic, for example, asks "I'm a man. Can I have sex with this person?" Sarcastic answers from "Catholicism" included molesting priests and lack of female consent.

Edition 2 references various conspiracies and esoteric beliefs in presenting the answers of "Scientology" to "Should I be candid and tell the truth?"

While Edition 3 only has its cover page uploaded, Edition 4 shows "Judaism" giving answers of "Exterminate them" (Old Testament) and "Segregate them and claim what's yours" (modern Israel) to the question "How should I treat other cultures?"

Nonetheless, pages 10-11 of Edition 6 posted on the Woroni Facebook page document the controversy the Islam infographic generated in reader letters. ISD President Muhammad Taufiq bin Suraidi bemoaned that the student-funded Woroni had not shown a "certain level of cultural sensitivity" amidst ANU's student body, a quarter of which is from abroad. Bin Suraidi promised, though, that the ISD would "work closely with the Woroni... such that an incident of this nature does not reoccur."

Nadiatul Akmal Mohd Radzman from the executive committee of ANU's Muslim Students Association (MSA) also took issue with Woroni. She, for example, contested various assertions of the infographic such as the "myth" of "72 virgins in Paradise," something controverted by Freestone in his adjacent letter with Koranic verses (55:56, 56:22, 78:33).

Radzman called "making fun of others... bullying" and falsely equated Islamic beliefs as a "way of life, not just a religion" with ethnicities like Asians. "We have racial tolerance, why can't we have religious tolerance?" she mistakenly analogized. "There are many other funny things that you can make fun of," she superficially concluded, "like botox and iPhones."

In contrast, Freestone's Edition 6 letter, also published on his personal website, saw no "reason to have a special standard for established religions that we would never conscience for any secular group, political party or new religious movement," even though "it's highly unsettling and confronting for believers to have their faith mocked."

In the future, though, Freestone will no longer make this principled stand for open debate at Woroni, for he described this letter as "my last contribution to Woroni." As the May 26 explanation noted, though, the evident "implications of these events for freedom of speech" will remain.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

The sinister reason they're robbing the Guides of God

If this country still had any spirit, tens of thousands of families would this weekend be resigning from the Girl Guides  (or ‘Girlguiding’ as it is now modishly known) and setting up a pro-British, pro-Christian breakaway.

An important youth movement, in which young minds are formed, has been taken over by radical revolutionaries, who plan to cut references to nation and God from the Guide ‘promise’ – a pledge they themselves describe as the organisation’s ‘beating heart’.

They know what they are doing. The same people long ago captured the schools and universities, which are now factories of Left-wing conformism. Now they want the youth movements as well.

But there will be no revolt. This is partly because the New Left are masters of a technique known as ‘salami-slicing’, by which they slowly change the country into somewhere else.

Each individual action is so thin a slice that only a few people will mind, and most will jeer at them for caring. ‘Moral panic!’ they will squawk.

But once enough of these slices have been taken, it is clear that a deep and lasting change has happened. By then it will be too late. People will quickly forget that Girl Guides were ever Christian or patriotic. And the pledge to honour the Queen – which has been kept for now – will go later.

As one of nature’s stroppy non-joiners, I’ve never been a Boy Scout. For me, the joys of the outdoors are overrated.

But I can’t help noticing that youth movements have been hugely important in the political struggles of our age. The Russian Communists and the German National Socialists both banned the Scouts and Guides.

And both Hitler Youth and Communist Pioneers had one thing very much in common – recruits were urged and even ordered to attack the Church. Pioneers jeered at priests in the street and even campaigned against Christmas trees.

Hitler Youths (whose meetings were held at the same time as church services) spied on priests and denounced them for the slightest criticism of the regime.

Hitler knew well what he was up to. To those many German adults who refused to follow him, he sneered: "When an opponent declares “I will not come over to your side”, I say calmly, “Your child belongs to us already ..... what are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community”.’

Or, as the brainwashed Hitler Youth sings in the film Cabaret, ‘tomorrow belongs to me’.

Parents who struggle to bring up children to love God and country know already how true this is, how their young come home from school stuffed with politically correct equality and diversity rubbish and ignorant of our history and tradition. Now the same process will affect the Guides.

Why should this happen? For those who think the Scouts and Guides are too patriotic or too religious, a Left-wing scout movement, the Woodcraft Folk, has long been available. I rather admire them for their independent-minded guts.

Long may the Woodcraft Folk flourish in our free, Christian country, but why should the Girl Guides copy them, and introduce this sickly little pledge of selfishness and squidgy loyalty to their ‘community’?

You’ll have to ask those who appointed Julia Bentley as the organisation’s chief executive. Ms Bentley is a zealous sexual liberationist, condom outreach worker, Blairite commissar and abortion apologist, so what did they expect?

But who, apart from her, actually wants this change? A few months after she was appointed, the Guides sent out a ‘Consultation’ questionnaire. Questions 7, 8 9 and 10 are all about the wording of the promise. I asked, and asked and asked ‘Girlguiding’ to give me figures on how respondents actually answered these questions. They flatly refused to tell me. Draw your own conclusions.

SOURCE





Homosexual violence blamed on conservatives

Events at Tel Aviv’s Barnoar social club for gay youth:

The barest facts are not in dispute: A masked individual entered the youth center the night of August 1, 2009 and started shooting, killing two (a 26-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl), injuring 11 others, then escaping into the night.

“Having insisted for decades that homosexuals are ‘just like everyone else,’ few gay activists in Israel or abroad seem prepared to admit that those ‘everyones’ are bound to include sinners as well as saints.”
The reaction offers a glimpse into the Tel Aviv psyche. Whereas the average foreign observer, Jew or gentile, might automatically guess that the killer was yet another Muslim terrorist, Tel Aviv’s intelligentsia immediately pointed the finger at the Jewish religious right.

After all, liberal secular Jews pointed out, hadn’t Haredi Yishai Schlissel stabbed three marchers during the 2005 Pride Parade in Jerusalem?

And what about equal-opportunity hater Jack Tytell, who, among many other things, once distributed instructions for building “your very own Molotov cocktail,” which he nicknamed the “Schlissel Special”?

Such homophobic ignorance was practically to be expected from those backward (and badly dressed) religious barbarians in Jerusalem—but Tel Aviv? The Barnoar massacre literally hit Israel’s elite where they lived.

Labour and Likud quickly issued official expressions of outrage so laden with the mandatory therapeutic jargon about “tolerance” and “homophobia” that their statements were virtually indistinguishable—a rare (and revealing) display of political unity.

Candlelight vigils popped up across the city, then around the world, culminating in a 20,000-strong rally in Tel Aviv a week after the shooting. A bipartisan array of Knesset members was conspicuously present, including President Shimon Peres himself.

And then…nothing.

That is, until last week, when—just before the annual Tel Aviv Pride Parade—police announced they’d finally arrested four people in connection with the lukewarm case.

One of those detained was Shaul Ganon, Barnoar’s high-profile and very homosexual founder.

Huh?  I struggled to piece together a sensible narrative out of vague, often contradictory English-language versions of Israeli news stories that were written under the constraints of a judge’s short-lived gag order. Eventually, a sordid soap opera emerged out of a “lost in translation” fog:

According to some gay jailhouse snitch, another gay guy—Ganon, it emerged—had molested some underage male who’d been hanging around the center. The victim told some lowlife family member, who got another lowlife to shoot up Barnoar in revenge.

Everyone arrested has since been named publicly, and they’re denying pretty much everything. Ganon first proclaimed his innocence, then admitted to “having sexual contact” with an underage boy—not the boy at the center of the revenge plot, however (who now denies Ganon ever touched him), but with a gay state’s witness whose latter-day jailhouse confession broke the case open.

And a “transgender woman” has just come forward to accuse Ganon of raping her ten years ago when she was still a he.

The only constant throughout this weird saga has been the liberal elite’s unshakable belief that the Barnoar massacre was a homophobic “hate crime,” an overt political act rather than, as now seems apparent, the culmination of a highly personal, almost feudal feud.

Never mind that two of those allegedly involved are gay men themselves, one a well-known hero in the “community.” Those facts don’t fit their well-practiced victimhood narrative, so Israel’s professional left keeps insisting those facts must be wrong.

A common refrain is that acts of revenge target specific individuals, not random strangers who happen to be in the right place at the wrong time. (Have these amateur criminologists ever heard of Sharon Tate, who was innocently subletting that Cielo Drive house from Charles Manson’s real target?)

Their desperation is palpable, and why not? If Ganon really did have sex with a minor at Barnoar, then “right wing” condemnations of a sinister, pedophiliac gay “agenda” will be impossible to dismiss any longer as mere hysteria.

Israel’s gay activists and their straight allies can’t accept that the tragedy they’d lovingly fashioned into a valuable souvenir of their own immaculate victimhood may have been just a sleazy “rape revenge” movie come to life—The Last Gay Youth Club on the Left, perhaps?

SOURCE





Marine Le Pen to face prosecution for comparing Muslims to Nazis

Her father was prosecuted without much effect so this will also be futile, I would think.  She will get a small fine and ignore it.  It will be good for her vote though

Marine Le Pen faces prosecution for comparing Muslim immigration to the Nazi occupation of France after the European Parliament's legal committee recommended that the far-Right leader be stripped of her immunity.

The full parliament is now expected to formally lift her protection from prosecution as an MEP after a vote on the recommendation on July 3, clearing the way for her to face race hate charges in a French court.

Sajjad Karim, a British Tory MEP on the parliament's legal affairs committee, voted in favour Ms Le Pen losing her parliamentary immunity.

"There is a red line between freedom of speech and inciting racial hatred," he said. "I, along with many other MEPs, today voted to drop Ms Le Pen's immunity and I am confident that the majority of the European Parliament will follow our lead in July."

French prosecutors asked the EU assembly last November to lift the French National Front leader's immunity as a lawmaker so she could be prosecuted for remarks likening Islamic prayers to the Nazi occupation.

Ms Le Pen faces charges for comments she made in a speech to National Front supporters in December 2010 when she denounced the holding of Muslim prayers in the streets of France in areas where there are no mosques.

"For those who like to talk about World War II, to talk about occupation, we could talk about, for once, the occupation of our territory. There are no armoured vehicles, no soldiers, but it is an occupation all the same and it weighs on people," she said.

She follows in the footsteps of her father Jean Marie, founder of the French National Front, who was stripped of his legal protection as an MEP to face German Holocaust denials charges in 1998, he had previously been convicted of similar charge in France.

SOURCE






"Protection" of female employees backfiring in Britain

As a mother-of-five and wealthy entrepreneur, she knows only too well how much effort it takes to juggle demanding personal and professional roles.

But Anya Hindmarch has launched a stinging attack on maternity laws – which she believes hinder rather than help women in the workplace.

‘There is a brown envelope  flashing above every woman’s  head in terms of tribunal threat,’ she declared.

The ‘tricky and suffocating’ regulations could force firms to employ men rather than women, Mrs Hindmarch, 45, told MPs. The luxury handbag and accessories company which bears her name counts celebrities such as the Duchess of Cambridge as fans.

Mrs Hindmarch, whose warning of the ‘brown envelope’ refers to the money which can be made from employment tribunals, has also been made one of the Government’s trade ambassadors.

The laws stop bosses from insisting a pregnant employee reveal her plans for maternity leave, such as if and when she will return to work.

They can ask but she is not required to answer and her company must not do anything which could be seen as pressurising her.

Mrs Hindmarch made her  comments when she appeared before the Commons Business Innovation and Skills Committee.

Asked by Labour MP Julie Elliott why she could not have these  types of conversation, she replied: ‘I find myself treading on eggshells and becoming hugely legal. It just feels really wrong.

‘It would be great if you were able to have a sensible chat. I would prefer it to go a stage further. It would work much better for women if they were asked to commit to how long they will take off.’

Even if a female employee planned to take only two months off, her firm has to hire a replacement for a year to cover the maternity leave.

‘You cannot hire someone for two months and keep rehiring,’ said Mrs Hindmarch.

Of her mostly female team of 50, a total of 13 had babies in 2011. But she added: ‘I think it [regulation] could end up working against women, unfortunately.

‘As a woman, a mother-of-five and an employer of a lot of women with children, it would end up making you make a choice between employing a man or a woman.

‘You probably might pick the easier route because the  regulation and consequential cost and eggshell treading would just be too onerous.’

She added: ‘I cannot say strongly enough that any more regulation will cripple this country. We are so over-regulated.’

Maternity rules have changed dramatically in the last decade, allowing women to take up to a year’s leave, with nine months paid, and request flexible working.

The committee’s report into women in the workplace was published yesterday. It called on the Government to highlight companies which encourage flexible working to ‘dispel the myth’ that this is ‘problematic and cannot work’.

Large firms should also publish  pay audits to highlight where large gender pay gaps exist, it added.

A Department for Business spokesman said a new system of shared parental leave was replacing ‘old-fashioned and rigid’ rules.

This allows working couples to choose how they share childcare in the first year after birth, he said.


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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

More multiculturalism in Britain:  Unlicensed Algerian cab driver is jailed for rape



An unlicensed taxi driver was jailed for raping a passenger in his car nearly one decade after being cleared of an almost identical attack.  Mohamed Hacene-Chaouch, 46, of Catford, south-east London, took advantage of the drunken 24-year-old woman after she spent a night out in Soho, central London.

The victim had been at a birthday party with friends and was so intoxicated that licensed black cabs had refused to take her home.

By the time the Algerian married father-of-five  picked her up on Tottenham Court Road, she was slipping in and out of consciousness.

Hacene-Chaouch, who was unlicensed and had convictions for touting, drove to her home in Hackney, east London, before the attack. He admitted picking the victim up but claimed no sexual activity could have taken place because he was only parked up for a minute. However, CCTV cameras proved he was lying.

Hacene-Chaouch was convicted of rape following a trial at the Old Bailey, before being jailed for seven years and three months today.

Jurors were not told Hacene-Chaouch had been acquitted of an almost identical attack in the Tottenham Court Road area in 2004.

Sentencing, Judge Wendy Joseph QC told him: ‘It must have been clear to you that she was helplessly and hopelessly drunk. ‘She told you she was so drunk no black cab would take her. It is clear she could hardly stand and was barely able to walk.

'You had positioned yourself where such people as her were found and you knew well that such touting was against the law. I am quite satisfied there was an element of predatory behaviour.

‘She trusted you to take her safely home. She was clearly vulnerable, obviously helpless and in your power. After that attack she suffered panic attacks and had great difficulty in sleeping.

‘She has found it impossible to form any new relationship with a man. She is a straightforward, sensible and practical young woman.

‘She holds out some hope for the future but recognises it will take a long time to get over what happened to her. You refuse to accept the wrong you have done. I have never heard the least scintilla of remorse.’

Before being led down to the cells, Hacene-Chaouch gestured to his wife in the public gallery and said: ‘I am innocent. I never touched her’.

He was convicted of touting for hire on several occasions between 2004 and July 2012. On January 27 this year he was waiting at the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road.

The woman had been out for a meal to celebrate a friend’s birthday before joining others at a bar.  She became separated from her friends and was trying to get a cab home when she bumped in Hacene-Chaouch.

She said: ‘I remember having the overwhelming feeling of being alone. I remember being in the car, in the back seat, and going in and out of consciousness. It’s very blurry but I think I got sick in the car and he was upset.’

Hacene-Chaouch stopped at a garage so she could withdraw £25 for the fare before parking up near her home. He then groped her between her legs before forcing her to perform a sex act on him.

She told her flatmate the following morning and the attack was reported to the police. The driver was traced through CCTV from the garage and from the street outside the victim’s flat.

Hacene-Chaouch denied oral rape but was convicted. He was also alleged to have stolen her mobile phone and camera, but a separate theft charge was withdrawn by prosecutors during the trial.

He was banned from operating as a taxi driver for ten years and ordered to pay a £120 surcharge. Hacene-Chaouch will also have to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for life.

SOURCE





A defence of the British social class system

Unlike Alan Milburn, I like the games of class and status because they give point, style and texture to existence

There is something sordid about SM. Its advocates indulge themselves in smutty special pleading to justify their peculiar tastes. I refer not, of course, to sado-masochism, but to that other contemporary vice: social mobility. Or, at least, to fussing about it.

Alan Milburn, a Blair health secretary, is now fussing on behalf of the Government’s Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. Two thirds of correspondents in its latest survey complained that progress in Britain depends on who, rather than what, you know. (Opinion was split, however, on whether their own background had been influential.)

Any advanced culture has class systems: methods of attributing merit to individuals. Once, that merit was determined by how much of Sussex you owned (something which had earlier been determined by how murderously you roughed-up your neighbours).

Britain’s class system was well-established by Chaucer’s day, with its nice hierarchy of yeoman, esquire and “gentilman”. This last category, still with us, was then enhanced by a mobile immigrant. This was an idea: the “gentiluomo” of Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, which established an enduring conception of elegance and manners.

Socially, anyone can mobilise to become a gentleman. It’s a matter of talent and desire more than contacts or inheritance. True, education creates the opportunity. Education is capital, a priceless source of immaterial wealth. That’s the point of getting one. Redbrick powered my own record-breaking lap times in the mobility race.

The problem is different: all too often the social mobility argument is not about enhancing opportunity, but inhibiting the exceptional. Exceptionality worries the SM lobby. We have seen this before. Procrustes insisted on making everyone fit his standardised iron bed, using amputation if necessary. Then there is Kurt Vonnegut, whose 1961 short story Harrison Bergeron is set in 2081, and has a Handicapper General whose job is to put masks on beautiful people, attach weights to the athletic and make the intelligent listen to nasty sounds on headsets to impair their superior thinking.

The SM argument is founded in fear and doubt, not good materials for any foundation. Yes, our class system presents many obstacles – but the mobile negotiate them, while the stationary stare dolefully at what stands in their way. If it is true that David Cameron has never spoken to Commissioner Milburn about his role, it may not be because Eton and Stokesley Comprehensive have their cultural differences, but because PM finds AM dull.

Of course things are determined by who you know. Life is a performance, not solitary confinement. But why should this surprise us? Genius might be cultivated in solitude, but its exercise requires a public audience. The same goes for charm and wit. You cannot be charming and witty alone in a room.

As for wealth, I do not know any rich kid who would not have been better off if his banker’s card had been taken away at birth. And while the present cabinet has a lot of sumptuous Etonian bottoms, the school’s pupils have been less mobile in sport, architecture, literature, science, technology and pole-dancing. So c’mon, fusspots.

I like the games of class and status because they give point, style and texture to existence. But if we are to be socially mobile, I want a two-way street. As de Tocqueville knew, a healthy culture can be judged by whether people hope to rise or fear to fall. I want a bit of each. Perhaps more of the latter, since fear is so inspiring. “I’m sorry, Mr Milburn,” I imagine the BA hostess saying. “I know you’re Handicapper General, and you’ve had a government handout for a first-class ticket, but we don’t think you’re suitable.” Down you go. That’s the promise of real social mobility.

SOURCE





DOD Produces Special Poster for Transgender, Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay Pride

On Tuesday, June 25, the U.S. Defense Department will give special recognition to "gay, lesbian and bisexual servicemembers"--as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civilian workers--for their "dedicated service to our country."

And this year, "Pride Month" at the Defense Department comes with a poster:

The red, white and blue poster -- designed for the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute located at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida -- includes the followiong quotation from President Barack Obama:

"For more than two centuries, we have worked to extend America's promise to all our citizens. Armed Forces have been both a mirror and a catalyst of that progress, and our troops, including gays and lesbians, have given their lives to defend the freedoms and liberties that we cherish as Americans."

OutServe-SLDN, an advocacy group for LGBT military personnel, called it "appropriate and gratifying" that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is following the precedent set in 2012 when then-Secretary Leon Panetta hosted the Pentagon's first LGBT Pride Month.

But the group isn't happy that the DOD memorandum announcing Tuesday's Pride event for gays, lesbians and bisexuals did not mention transgenders in uniform:

"While acknowledging transgender civilian DOD employees, the memorandum notably omits any mention of the contributions of transgender people in uniform -– presumably because transgender people remain barred from service by outdated and obsolete medical regulations.

“Transgender people have served this nation with pride, honor, and distinction –- and continue to do so in the hundreds, if not thousands. It’s past time to honor them for their service and sacrifice, and past time to end the discredited and obsolete practice of forcing them to serve in silence and fear,” said Army veteran and OutServe-SLDN Executive Director Allyson Robinson in a news release issued earlier this month.

LGBT Pride Month is celebrated each June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City that erupted after a police raid on a gay bar.

Tomorrow, the Defense Department will celebrate the December 22, 2010 repeal of the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Homosexuals have been allowed to openly serve in the U.S. military since September 20, 2011.

SOURCE





German Left Attacking critics of Islam

National parliamentarians from Die Linke, Germany's post-communist Left Party, recently presented the federal German government with a Minor Inquiry (Kleine Anfrage or KA) concerning the government's policy towards the conservative German website Politically Incorrect (PI).  This is only the latest effort by left-wing multiculturalists to quash open discussion, and criticism on Islam by designating the discourse "anti-democratic"and "right-wing extremist."

As the online rules of order for the German parliament or Bundestag explain, the KA in Section 104 allows the Bundestag's president to receive questions for the federal government about "certain delineated areas." Normally the president calls upon the government to answer the questions in writing within 14 days, although agreement with the KA authors can extend this time limit. 

As the German-language KA Wikipedia entry explains, this procedure serves as a means of parliamentary control over the government by calling upon it to give account of a given state of affairs.

Die Linke's May 13, 2013, KA (document 17/13573, available in PDF format here) notes that "Islam-hostile internet portals" like PI with its "tens of thousands of visitors daily" and parties such as the Freedom Party (Die Freiheit) and Germany's Pro movement (Pro NRW/Pro Deutschland) "warn against a supposed ‘Islamization of Europe.'"  In PI reader comments, meanwhile, Muslims "are collectively humiliated and denigrated in a racist, xenophobic, insulting, hate-filled, and at times violence-glorifying manner."

Referenced by the KA and previously reported by this author (see here and here), PI and Die Freiheit, with common members such as Michael Stürzenberger, have conducted a petition drive for a referendum to stop a proposed Center for Islam in Europe-Munich (Zentrum für Islams in Europa-München or ZIE-M). 

The KA references a story from the Munich-based German national newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung discussing how Stürzenberger commonly compares the Koran with Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and Die Freiheit rallies have featured signs stating "Christ is truth, Muhammad is a lie." Previously reported by this author as well (see here and here), the KA also notes that the Bavarian Office of Constitutional Protection (Verfassungsschutz) has recently begun monitoring Bavarian chapters of PI/Die Freiheit due to "anti-constitutional" sentiments.

A previous August 18, 2011, Die Linke KA (17/6823)  had also dealt with PI/Die Freiheit in the wake of the July 22, 2011, massacre perpetrated in Norway by Anders Behring Brevik.  This earlier KA bemoaned in Germany an "increasing hostility to Islam precisely among high earners and people with high levels of education." In this context "populist and xenophobic campaigns against ‘Islam'" appeared to the "extreme right in Europe" as a "recipe for success for their propaganda" and an "entrance ticket into the political middle." Die Freiheit was one of several attempts to found "anti-Islam parties" while PI had become a "central forum of Islam haters in the German-speaking area."

Yet in citing an article from Berlin's leftwing Tageszeitung (taz), the 2011 KA noted that the federal Verfassungsschutz had not deemed PI's outlook as anti-constitutional given PI's self-professed "pro-Israeli, pro-American" character.  The article noted additionally PI's "emphatic profession of loyalty to the Grundgesetz," Germany's Basic Law or constitution.

The government's answer on September 5, 2011, (17/6910) to the various questions concerning matters such as membership and statements of PI/Die Freiheit and other groups in the 2011 KA continued this analysis. With respect to Die Freiheit, there were "not sufficient indications" to classify Die Freiheit as "rightwing extremist." The "overwhelming majority of PI entries," meanwhile, "made no use of classical rightwing extremist argumentation patterns, but rather was to be situated within the Islam-critical spectrum."

While some PI contributions had "anti-Muslim or in parts even racist content," these were "practically exclusively" in the comments section and were "even there the exception." Thus a "rightwing extremist effort (still) did not allow itself to be discerned" at PI.

Not to be deterred, Die Linke responded on October 31, 2011, with yet another KA (17/7569) about "anti-Muslim agitation" citing several sources such as newspapers warning against PI, Die Freiheit, and other groups.  In this KA, Die Linke indicated that it was not so much interested in a "secret service surveillance of the Islam- and Muslim-hostile scene" by the federal Verfassungschutz as a "societal ostracism of this body of thought just like every other form of racism and anti-Semitism."

Among other questions, Die Linke wanted to know what connections PI had to "religious groupings from the evangelical, dogmatic-Catholic, and old Catholic milieus." The government's response (17/7761) on November 17, 2011, however, reiterated the position taken in 17/6910 and noted that "individual statements" did not suffice to define an entity as "extremist" but rather demanded an "overall observation."

In 17/13573 Die Linke repeated many of its previous questions and inquired whether the federal government still maintains its previous outlook in light of recent Bavarian decisions.  This is the latest Die Linke salvo in an ongoing campaign to bring about a self-proclaimed political "ostracism" of PI/Die Freiheit and other groups. 

Yet the irony was not lost on Stürzenberger, who pointed out to PI that Die Linke, with much of its roots in East Germany's Communist Party, is itself an object of federal Verfassungsschutz surveillance.

The future of a free and open discussion of Islam in Germany seems perilous with the likes of Die Linke, a totalitarian-legacy group, continually demonstrating its propensity to use the German federal government as a tool of intimidation against Islam's critiques.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

Senate Committee Passes ENDA, Which Would Lead to Meritless Litigation and Erode Free Speech

by Hans Bader

A Senate Committee has voted 15-to-7 to approve the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, “a bill that would prohibit employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” reports the Huffington Post. We previously explained why the bill would encourage meritless litigation through one-way fee-shifting — through the so-called Christiansburg Garment rule — and would undermine free speech about sexual-orientation-related issues in religious bookstores, and within religious broadcasters and newspapers (This is because under it, the courts might allow gay employees who overhear theologically-conservative viewpoints about gay marriage or sexual relations or morality, or are exposed to religious books and commentary in bookstores or radio or TV shows containing such viewpoints, to bring “hostile work environment” claims, as I also explain further below).

More coverage of the bill is provided in The Hill, The Washington Post‘s Plum Line, and Daily Kos.

Although ENDA purports not to include disparate-impact claims, even some courts that construe “hostile work environment” claims as being solely a species of intentional discrimination, i.e., disparate treatment, rather than disparate impact, have nevertheless allowed sexual harassment claims under existing federal laws such as Title VII that really more akin to disparate-impact claims, in that they involved comments or displays that were not aimed at the plaintiff because of her sex, but which merely were overheard by the plaintiff. See, e.g., Reeves v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., 594 F.3d 798 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc)(unanimously allowing sexual harassment lawsuit largely over comments not aimed at the plaintiff, such as offensive radio programs played in plaintiff’s workplace). Based on such logic, an arbitrator in one case allowed a female employee who worked for a broadcaster to collect damages over offensive broadcasts she was exposed to in the course of her job. In another case criticized by civil-libertarians, a college initially found a student guilty of racial harassment for reading a history book about the Ku Klux Klan.

By parity of reasoning, these courts could sharply restrict religious expression about things like gay marriage, sodomy laws, adoption by gay couples, or same-sex unions, that is offensive to gays who overhear it, by interpreting it as a violation of ENDA, even though ENDA purports not to authorize disparate impact claims. Local civil-rights agencies have occasionally charged employers with sexual-orientation harassment for speech that is not even aimed at a gay complainant. For example, an employer was charged with sexual-orientation harassment under Seattle’s gay-rights ordinance partly for listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio, which offended a gay employee, even though the charges were controversial, to say the least. (While the Title VII rulings I discussed earlier allowing employees to sue over speech not directed at them are dubious as a matter of statutory construction, they are likely to be followed by courts interpreting ENDA, unless and until constitutional objections are successful raised, since ENDA is largely modeled on Title VII.)

This raises First Amendment problems, since such restrictions on religious expression are constitutionally more suspect in the eyes of many judges than bans on sexual expression in the workplace, compare Meltebeke v. BOLI, 903 P.2d 351 (Or. 1995) (voiding religious harassment fine for unintentionally offensive religious speech that created a religiously-hostile work environment as violation of state religious-freedom guarantees) with Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards, 760 F.Supp. 1486 (M.D. Fla. 1991) (upholding injunction against pornography in workplace to remedy sexual harassment). In short, hostile-environment claims are likely to be viewed as constitutionally problematic more often under ENDA than under existing federal law.

For a discussion of the broad range of speech that hostile-environment harassment law already reaches, see the writings of U.C.L.A. Law Professor Eugene Volokh, which you can find here and here. Volokh is the author of First Amendment textbooks and is widely cited by American judges and law reviews, including in opinions that have been joined in by every sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice. Courts have occasionally blocked hostile-environment racial or sexual harassment lawsuits over core political speech — like the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Rodriguez v. Maricopa Community College, 605 F.3d 703 (9th Cir. 2010), blocking a racial-harassment suit over anti-immigration emails — but generally, the courts have allowed the concept of a “hostile work environment” to reach a broad range of speech, and out of ingrained habit, courts are likely to continue that practice when they interpret ENDA, paving the way for constitutional clashes. (The Supreme Court has never squarely addressed the issue, as Justice Thomas noted in his opinion in Avis Rent-A-Car System v. Aguilar, thus leaving enormous uncertainty in just how far political or religious speech can be restricted in the name of preventing a hostile work environment.)

One common misconception promoted about ENDA is that its exclusion of disparate-impact claims would prevent meritless statistically-based suits against employers saying they haven’t hired enough gay employees on a numerical basis. This reflects the misconception that statistical cases can only be brought under a disparate-impact theory. In reality, gross statistical disparities can also give rise to a lawsuit under an intentional-discrimination theory, too, if the disparity is significant enough, although in such cases, the employer is theoretically allowed to defend itself by giving innocent reasons for the disparity. See International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324 (1977). Even flawed statistical evidence is admissible in the eyes of many courts under the Supreme Court’s 1986 Bazemore decision, and even an innocent employer risks a finding of liability based on sloppy regression analyses that do not include all relevant variables. The possibility of flawed statistical evidence is particularly great under ENDA, because the percentage of gay Americans — unlike the percentage of black Americans — is not subject to precise calculation, and is often massively overstated by the public including (no doubt including judges and jurors).

The possibility of pressure to hire-by-the-numbers cannot be ruled out under ENDA. Activists have already pressured President Obama to mandate sexual-orientation-based hiring goals for government contractors. The Supreme Court’s decision in International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324 (1977), permits employers to be held liable for “disparate treatment” (not just “disparate impact”) if circumstantial evidence in the form of workplace racial imbalances suggests that the employer is guilty of discrimination. Statistical disparities are treated as creating a “prima facie” case of “disparate treatment” if the racial or sexual composition of the employer’s workforce is at least two standard deviations away from the purported norm. But no one knows exactly what that norm is for sexual orientation. As the leading pollster Gallup notes, Americans tend to vastly overestimate the percentage of the population that is gay. As Garance Franke-Ruta of The Atlantic notes, Americans systematically overestimate the percentage of the population that is gay or lesbian: “‘U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian,’ Gallup found,” even though “fewer than 5 percent of Americans identify as gay or lesbian.” In short, due to widespread misconceptions about the percentage of gay Americans, ENDA could lead to meritless statistically-based suits against employers under a Teamsters-style pattern-or-practice (or “statistical disparity”) theory.

We share the Senate Committee’s disapproval of prejudice towards LGBT Americans. But if federal lawmakers wanted to help LGBT Americans, they should have focused on repealing their own discriminatory laws against gays and lesbians (we have criticized federal discrimination against gay people in the past, here, here, here, and here), rather than imposing new burdens on American business, which is perfectly happy to hire gay employees, and has a much better record of fairness based on sexual orientation than Congress itself. As we noted earlier, “American business is quite happy to hire gay and lesbian employees, and needs no federal mandate to do so. Virtually all Fortune 500 companies already ban sexual orientation discrimination in their own hiring and firing, and have done so for years.”

SOURCE






Up to half of crimes written off by Scotland Yard

But use insulting language in public -- even to a horse  -- and they will be down on you like a ton of bricks

Almost half of all reported crime is being written off by Scotland Yard, figures show, fuelling fears that victims are being ignored.

In some offence categories as many as eight in ten reports are “screened out”, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Screening out means that while the reported offences are included in official crime statistics no concerted effort is made to investigate them beyond an initial consideration, mainly because officers believe the culprit will not be found.

The Metropolitan Police “screened out” 346,397 reported crimes in 2012/13 – some 45 per cent of all offences.

Some 40 per cent of burglaries were written off, almost a quarter of robberies and 80 per cent of bicycle thefts.

Roger Evans, the Conservative member of the Greater London Assembly, who obtained the figures, said: “It’s a disgrace that the Met Police are refusing to investigate a huge number of acquisitive crimes.

“A victim of crime shouldn’t feel that the police have no interest in them unless you are physically or sexually assaulted.

“Resources are tight; but crimes such as burglary are, in no way, minor. They can have a devastating impact on the confidence and well-being of the victim.

“Moreover, many criminals’ illegal activities escalate each time they get away with it so we are sending out a very dangerous message.”

The figures also showed more than one in ten common assaults and assaults with injury were screen out last year – the equivalent of 11,000 violent attacks.

Some 23 per cent of robberies were written off as were three quarters of car thefts and 85 per cent of thefts from cars.

Mr Evans added: “If you are a thief in London, you can rest assured that over three quarters of your crimes, reported by victims, will be ignored by police.

“With the high availability of CCTV in London there is no excuse for this lackadaisical attitude.

“We need a dramatic shift in the way police see these crimes – they may not be exciting to investigate but they are serious.”

Mr Evans said victims of crimes should be able to appeal to their local safer neighbourhood boards – groups of local volunteers working with local police which come into existence from 2014 – if the police decide not to investigate their crime.

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: “It is incorrect that the MPS does not investigate a high number of crimes. The MPS investigates every single allegation of crime that it receives.

“A number of crime allegations will require secondary investigation once the initial investigation is complete.

“The MPS currently conducts secondary investigations in approximately 60 per cent of all crime allegations, as compared to the national average of 45 per cent.

“The MPS is concentrating on improving the quality and rigour of initial investigations in order to improve the service to victims by reducing the need for follow up visits.”

Last year the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary warned that up to one in four incidents completely ignored by the police should have been recorded as a crime.

Separate to “screening out”, forces will also designate some reported offences as “no crimes”, after an initial assessment concludes no crime was actually committed.

However, a study by the HMIC said that, nationally, one in seven "no crimes" was dismissed wrongly but in the worst offending force, the Metropolitan Police, it was as high as one in four.

SOURCE






The weird patriotism the British Left attach to their decrepit  health service

Three years ago, at the very moment that he was presiding over the abominations at Mid Staffs – and, as we now know, several other hospitals – Andy Burnham, then Health Secretary, was calling me ‘unpatriotic’ for pointing out the poor performance of the NHS in international league tables.

I mention it, not to have a go at the poor fellow – the rest of the country is already doing that – but to explore the connection between the tendency to shout down any criticism of the NHS and the number of British hospitals which are, as the Keogh Report put it, ‘trapped in mediocrity’. Any organisation that is treated as being beyond reproach is bound in time to become flabby, self-serving and producer-centred. It happened to the mega-charities. It happened to the United Nations. It would be surprising if the NHS were an exception.

In today’s Guardian, Simon Jenkins writes:

    "Lobbyists for the NHS have resisted reform by appealing to public emotion since its foundation. It has served them well – especially the consultants."

Indeed. Which is why the NHS remains stuck in the 1940s: an era of conscription, rationing, identity cards and unprecedented government control. It is why, while every other Western European country developed a mixed system of public and private provision, Britain clung to a state monolith. (This, incidentally, was the sixty-year old mistake I once criticised: the decision, wisely opposed at the time by the Conservatives and the BMA, to nationalise private, charitable and foundation hospitals rather than allowing them to form part of a pluralist system.) And it's why all the parties in Britain regard as normal a situation which only Communist parties in Europe support; no mainstream Social Democrats want to adopt a British-style system.

For a fair chunk of the British Left, a state-run NHS is beyond criticism. It is not a question on which different parties may reasonably disagree (‘Stop treating the NHS like a political football!’) Rather, it is seen, as in Andy Burnham’s formulation, or in Danny Boyle’s Olympic opening ceremony, as a test of patriotism. The same people who are quick to deplore the sentiment ‘my country right or wrong’ often take precisely such an attitude to the NHS. They don’t use those words, of course. What they say is ‘Instead of criticising the NHS, why don’t we all work together to improve it?’ But, if you think about it, it amounts to much the same thing.

Supporters of the status quo know that they have powerful human instincts on their side. We are, by nature, change-averse. We seem to be born that way (‘Would you like to try this, darling?’ ‘No!’) Our day-to-day encounters with the NHS are, as they jolly well ought to be in a country as wealthy as Britain, satisfactory, and we don’t want to seem ungrateful by complaining. While the OECD ranks our healthcare system poorly against those of other developed countries, it is by no means the worst in the world. And so we stick with what we know. Indeed, there is a respectable Burkeian argument that our irrational attachment to a familiar institution matters more than a strict calculation of what is the most efficient model.

The trouble is that a general attachment to the status quo has been twisted into a vicious, even violent, intolerance of any suggested alternative. When I pointed out that the NHS fared badly by most international comparisons three years ago, my since-deceased mother was harassed by Left-wing journalists. I suppose I should be grateful that her grave has not been vandalized – as happened to the mother of the woman who drew attention to the barbarities in Mid Staffs.

That, thank Heaven, was an isolated case. But listen to the language habitually used by those opposed to change. Consider the shrill, shouty way in which Labour MPs behaved in the House of Commons during the Health Secretary’s statement yesterday. A foreign observer would not have believed that this was a legislature assembled to debate tragic and unnecessary deaths.

Watch the video below, brought out in response to Andrew Lansley’s modest attempt to bring decisions slightly closer to patients. Or read the comments at the HandsOffOurNHS hashtag on Twitter. They don't constitute a reasoned defence of a state-run healthcare system. Again and again, they assert that ‘evil’ and ‘greedy’ people want to ‘privatise’ the NHS. No one specifies what is meant by ‘privatise’. Do they imagine that the Tories would sell shares in the NHS? Who would be mad enough to buy them?

But, of course, this isn’t about different policy options. It’s about preventing any serious discussion from beginning. And it’s precisely this intolerance of dissent that helped create the horrors at Morecambe, Mid Staffs and the rest. I know that's not how you meant things to work out comrades; but it's what happened.

SOURCE





The British state’s ‘uncivilised’ treatment of volunteers

It is the government’s policy of suspicion towards carers that it is undermining help for older people

Lib-Con health minister Norman Lamb has called for Neighbourhood Watch and other local groups to help care for elderly residents in their area - providing companionship, and help with feeding and washing. Lamb criticised the ‘uncivilised’ abandonment of the elderly, leaving them to live ‘miserable’ and solitary lives.

Yet this ‘uncivilised’ abandonment has been fomented by the state itself. For many years, it has insisted on criminal-records checks on anyone who offers such ‘care and companionship’ to elderly people in their area. This is because elderly people are defined as ‘vulnerable adults’, and anyone offering help is asked to prove that they are not seeking to ‘take advantage’ of their ‘position of trust’.

So it is now commonplace for local organisations going to the houses of elderly people to vet all volunteers. Camden Council in north London has even demanded that elderly people volunteering to telephone other elderly people for a chat be subjected to criminal-records checks. Other volunteers elsewhere are subjected to other procedures built on suspicion - such as the requirement that volunteers driving elderly people to the shops always work in twos, so they can keep an eye on each other.

These checks turn volunteers off, and have led to the collapse of essential support services. One volunteer organisation in Hampshire - which for years had run a local service driving elderly people to the shops - collapsed after the council demanded that the leader run Criminal Records Bureau checks on all volunteers.

So yes, it would be wonderful if people did more to help their elderly neighbours, and yes, the current abandonment is ‘uncivilised’. But if Lamb wants to get to the root of this problem, then he would do well to look at the uncivilised policies propagated by government, which treat help or care as a potential abuse situation requiring strenuous state regulation.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

Coroner condemns British paramedics who refused to save drowning man in ditch 'for health and safety reasons'

Emergency workers of a sick country.  Concern about "Health and Safety" is a major and most destructive form of political correctness in Britain

A coroner has condemned paramedics who refused to jump into a drainage ditch to treat a dying man because they would not break health and safety rules.

Young farmer Michael Thornton had been knocked unconscious when a Land Rover he was in crashed and overturned in the water.

But when paramedics arrived they made a snap 'risk assessment' and refused to get into the 10ft-wide canal.

The 30-year-old eventually died as a result of drowning and his head injuries.

Michael Rose, the coroner for West Somerset, said: 'I will not say what I think of health and safety regulations.  'I was brought up in a country where men risked their own lives to save the lives of others.  'That was a period in our history which has almost ceased.'

Mr Rose recorded an accidental death verdict and did not say his life could have been saved if the paramedics had gone in the water to reach him.

Driver Matthew Braddick and his friend Jason Cheal managed to escape and haul Mr Thornton on top of the upturned vehicle, where they attempted CPR.

A policeman who arrived at the scene minutes later had no hesitation and immediately plunged into the water.

He helped pull Mr Thornton to the road where the paramedics were waiting but they were unable to revive him.

An inquest heard that the primary cause of his death was drowning coupled with reduced consciousness and a traumatic head injury.

But despite their refusal to jump in, bosses at South Western Ambulance Trust insisted the crew made exactly the right decision and performed admirably.  A spokesman said: 'The trust is confident the crew made an appropriate risk assessment on arrival at the scene and administered the best possible care in what were particularly difficult circumstances.'

Coroner Mr Rose said the Land Rover had not been travelling at more than 30 mph and may well have swerved to avoid an animal on the country road.

Mr Thornton was a young farmer who had his own agricultural businesses.

At the time of his death his mother Mandy Phillips, 53, said: 'It still doesn't seem real and I expect him to walk back through the door. We will miss him terribly.  'He always had a smile on his face and he lived for his tractor driving.'

His partner Liz Richardson, 35, added: 'He was a very hard worker and would do anything for anyone. He loved his job, his work and being out in the countryside.'

The inquest heard that Mr Thornton's friends were unable to carry the knocked-out victim up the slippery slopes of the 10ft-wide rhyne [drainage ditch].

An ambulance eventually arrived but the paramedic refused to climb down into the shoulder-high water, citing health and safety.

But as soon as PC Leslie Day arrived he jumped in and between them managed to get injured Mr Thornton out of the rhyne for proper medical assistance.

In a statement to the inquest Mr. Braddick's statement described his shock at the medic's refusal to enter the water.

SOURCE





Racist British bureaucrats

Isabelle Coad couldn’t have wished for a happier childhood – despite being abandoned at birth in her native Sri Lanka by her 16-year-old mother who had been raped.

She was adopted  by an English couple who brought her to Britain and raised her along with their natural sons in the leafy suburbs of Loughborough.

She realised that her life had been so enriched by the experience that at the age of 23 she decided to follow in her adoptive parents’ footsteps and adopt a foreign child so she could transform his life.

But she hadn’t bargained for  the politically correct bureaucracy that plagues Britain’s adoption process.

Even though Isabelle had been happily brought up in a mixed race family, she found that the adoption authorities seemed obsessed by ‘colour matching’.

Nathaniel had been born in Uganda and dumped in a skip at about 18 months old before being taken to an orphanage. When Isabelle found him she planned to save him from the life of poverty and pain that could have been her own fate. But the adoption authorities in the UK advised her ‘not to bother’ because the colour of his skin differed from hers.

‘They asked how I could look after his Afro hair and skin when it was so different from my own,’ says Isabelle, 30.

‘And then they asked how could I feed him according to his cultural needs. I don’t think Nathaniel was going to complain about not being served Ugandan food. For him, any food was a luxury.

‘When he was found he was suffering from malnutrition, malaria and rickets, was covered in scars from being beaten and had a cataract in his left eye.

‘He spoke a strange dialect that no one understood, and while he knew how to wash clothes, he didn’t know how to play with toys.

‘I really don’t think he would have survived if he had been left in Uganda as a street kid.  ‘Some are drafted into child  slavery while others become child soldiers. And there is still child  sacrifice in Africa.

‘But the UK has a fixation with having the perfect arrangement when it comes to inter-racial adoption. They want parents from exactly the same background as the child. It’s ludicrous.’

Isabelle, a learning support worker, fought a five-year battle to adopt Nathaniel, at one stage moving to Uganda to ensure she could become his mother. She almost lost him to pancreatitis and narrowly escaped death herself when she was attacked by masked gunmen who opposed mixed race adoption.

But finally she was able to bring Nathaniel, who is now seven, to live with her in Loughborough.

It is testimony to Isabelle’s bravery and steely tenacity that she has been able to adopt her son and now she is equally determined to bring about a change in the law to ensure that other British families, trying to adopt within the UK, don’t fall foul of the same bureaucracy.

‘I went through hell, but I am one of the lucky ones,’ she admits. ‘The whole adoption process here is ridiculous. It needs to be reformed and made less stringent. There are so many loving families willing to take in a needy child.

‘Should we really prevent that from happening just because their skin is a different colour?’

The situation stems from the fact that the majority of children on the adoption register in the UK are from minority ethnic backgrounds, while those wishing to adopt are predominantly white. Currently 4,600 needy and abandoned children are waiting for new parents.

It takes nearly two years to  adopt a white child in Britain, but almost a year longer to adopt a black child because of the inter-racial problem.

Education Minister Michael Gove – who was himself adopted – recently called for an urgent overhaul of the system, describing current law as ‘misguided’ and insisting that ‘ethnicity must not stand in the way if there is a loving family, ready and able to adopt a child.’

The Department of Education hopes the reforms, which include cutting the time it takes for a child to be adopted, are made law by the first quarter of 2014. But Mr Gove faces opposition from some of Britain’s adoption charities, which continue to insist that children’s culture and ethnicity should not be dismissed.

Isabelle’s parents, Adrian and Elisabeth, faced no such problems when in 1983 they adopted her  from Sri Lanka, along with another baby, Miriam, who had been abandoned on the steps of a school.
Adrian had worked in Sri Lanka and, at that time, Britain had an adoption agreement with the country. The couple had two boys of their own – Gregory, then six, and Alexander, three. They wanted a larger family but Elisabeth was unable to have more children.

Mr Coad, 65, recalls: ‘We wanted two girls so they could have each other. There was no problem with the inter-racial thing.’

Isabelle was never keen on  having children of her own but became interested in adopting when she volunteered to work at the Amani Baby Cottage orphanage in Uganda. Nathaniel arrived there in 2006, in an appalling physical condition.

It was a time when Madonna and Angelina Jolie were adopting  children from different ethnic  backgrounds, making the process look easy. The reality, however, was vastly different. When the British Embassy in Kampala failed to provide any information on adoption and Isabelle drew a blank on the internet, she phoned Leicestershire County Council for help.

‘They basically told me not to do it and questioned my ability to look after an African child,’ she says. ‘That’s when they asked the ridiculous question about being able to tend to his hair.’

After working at the orphanage for several months, Isabelle was no stranger to the atrocities that people inflicted on unwanted children. One baby had been thrown into a latrine and lay there for several days before being found. Another premature baby was found in a sealed plastic bag, out in the rain. He was placed in a broken incubator and kept warm with a kerosene lamp. Miraculously, he pulled through.

Amid such atrocities, Nathaniel’s story hardly stood out but, after nursing him back to health over several months, Isabelle developed a deep bond with him.  ‘I didn’t go to Africa with the intention of adopting a child, but I just knew then that God wanted me to adopt Nathaniel,’ she says.

Back home, Isabelle began research and discovered that under Ugandan law, any prospective parent must become a resident of the country for a minimum of three years in order to foster a child before adopting them. So in 2008 she decided to move there to foster Nathaniel, unsure of when or if she would return to Britain.

She found work as a teacher in an international school and was soon fast-tracked to become its co-ordinator on a much higher salary. This infuriated many locals, some of whom were also unhappy about her adoption bid.

Nathaniel was taken away from her twice before the attack by masked gunmen, who broke into Isabelle’s compound at 3am.

‘I had to run through the grounds to let the security guard in,’ Isabelle says. ‘I didn’t think about being shot, I just ran for my life.’ The thugs fled. ‘I was told if they come with guns they’re there to kill you. And afterwards I was told it was because of the adoption. But I wasn’t prepared to give up; I couldn’t just leave Nathaniel as an orphan again.’

Isabelle is convinced she was given a hard time by the Ugandans because she was [South] Asian – a hangover from former dictator Idi Amin’s days, and his expulsion of the country’s 80,000 Asians in 1972.

In 2009, after two failed attempts, Isabelle, who is single, finally brought Nathaniel to England for six months just in time for Christmas. By this time she had established legal guardianship. ‘It was so special and such a relief to be home,’ she says. ‘He kept talking about the Christmas lights and also saw snow for the first time.’

Then in April 2010, Nathaniel  was rushed to hospital with a suspected perforated bowel and spent five days in intensive care. Doctors diagnosed pancreatitis caused by an infection. Luckily, he has suffered no lasting effects.

The pair never returned to Uganda and, instead, later that year Isabelle decided to adopt him in Britain. Initially she was told she was unlikely to succeed but in December 2011, and completely out of the blue, she received a letter from Nottingham County Court, inviting her to celebrate Nathaniel’s adoption.  ‘I was not expecting that at all,’ Isabelle says. ‘I called my dad and then went to Nathaniel’s school to tell him. He was so happy.’

Looking at Nathaniel today, no one would believe what he’s been through. Dressed in a smart Ralph Lauren shirt – ‘an eBay bargain’ – he zooms around chatting in perfect English. His laughter fills the family’s four-bedroom house, but he listens attentively to his story – his mother has never tried to hide it from him.

He never wants to return to Uganda. Hugging Isabelle, he says: ‘It’s a scary place.’

Yesterday a Leicestershire County Council spokesman said: ‘We work hard to find secure and loving homes for the children in our care. The priority for adoption agencies across the UK is the welfare of each child, and although we have no record of this discussion, it would be normal to explore people’s suitability as an adopter.’

SOURCE





Sikhs in Britain told to halt weddings over homosexual rights

The future of traditional Indian weddings in Britain is in doubt because of the fallout from gay marriage passing into law, it has emerged.

Sikh temples have been advised to halt all civil marriage ceremonies on their premises to protect them from possible legal challenges for refusing to conduct same-sex weddings.

It is the first example of a religious group altering its marriage practices to avoid potential litigation based on equalities or human rights law.

Other groups, including the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and the orthodox Jewish organisation United Synagogue, also resisted the legislation, but they have not indicated that they will go as far as to surrender their marriage licences.

The Government has given repeated assurances that legal ­provisions should prevent anyone being forced to act against their religious teachings.

The warning comes in a letter to Sikh places of worship, known as gurdwaras, from Sikhs In England, a specialist advisory body. It urges them to consider deregistering as a venue for civil weddings — which would leave gurdwaras performing wedding rites with no legal force.  Couples would have to attend a separate ceremony in a register office or other venue recognised by their local council.

Although the advice is not binding, it is understood that it is being taken seriously.

Lord Singh, the director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, told the House of Lords that he feared opponents of same-sex marriage would be “coerced” into accepting the new legal definition of marriage.

The network also advised members that it believes faith groups could end up being “bullied” into conducting same-sex marriages.

The same-sex marriage Act, which received Royal Assent this week, contains provisions to prevent individuals and groups from being compelled to carry out such unions, under a so-called “quadruple lock” of legal protections.

But Sikhs In England has told supporters that such assurances could be swept away by a challenge in Strasbourg. Harmander Singh, principal adviser to Sikhs In England, said: “We are concerned that the quadruple lock isn’t going to be worth the paper it is written on.

“In the longer term, as soon as there is an issue and it goes to the European Court of Human Rights, no one can be sure, because the quadruple lock means nothing under subsidiarity.”

In common with many churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwaras are registered with councils as venues to conduct weddings.  It enables them to combine the civil formalities of the marriage with a religious ceremony.

If Sikh places of worship deregister, it would lead to a situation similar to that in France, where couples have a civil wedding at the town hall with a church service as an optional extra.

“We have no authority, neither has the Government, to change our scriptures,” said Mr Singh. “We are bound by our religious teachings and we have been put in a difficult situation.”

He added: “Civil marriage is, with respect, a paper exercise.”

SOURCE







CDC Study: Use of Firearms For Self-Defense is ‘Important Crime Deterrent’

“Self-defense can be an important crime deterrent,”says a new report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The $10 million study was commissioned by President Barack Obama as part of 23 executive orders he signed in January.

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies,” the CDC study, entitled “Priorities For Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” states.

The report, which notes that “ violent crimes, including homicides specifically, have declined in the past five years,” also pointed out that “some firearm violence results in death, but most does not.” In fact, the CDC report said, most incidents involving the discharge of firearms do not result in a fatality.

“In 2010, incidents in the U.S. involving firearms injured or killed more than 105,000 Americans, of which there were twice as many nonfatal firearm-related injuries (73,505) than deaths.”

The White House unveiled a plan in January that included orders to the CDC to “conduct research on the causes and prevention of gun violence.” According to the White House report, “Research on gun violence is not advocacy; it is critical public health research that gives all Americans information they need.”

The Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council released the results of their research through the CDC last month. Researchers compiled data from previous studies in order to guide future research on gun violence, noting that “almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.”

“Most felons report obtaining the majority of their firearms from informal sources,” adds the report, while “stolen guns account for only a small percentage of guns used by convicted criminals.”

Researchers also found that the majority of firearm deaths are from suicide, not homicide. “Between the years 2000 and 2010, firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearm-related violence in the United States.”

African American males are most affected by firearm-related violence, with “32 per 100,000” deaths. Risk factors and predictors of violence include income inequality, “diminished economic opportunities . . . high levels of family disruption” and “low levels of community participation.”

The report expresses uncertainty about gun control measures, stating that “whether gun restrictions reduce firearm-related violence is an unresolved issue,” and that there is no evidence “that passage of right-to-carry laws decrease or increase violence crime.” It also stated that proposed  “gun turn-in programs are ineffective.”

Instead, researchers proposed gun safety technologies such as “external locking devices and biometric systems” to reduce firearm-related deaths.

“I thought it was very telling that this report focused so heavily on . . . futuristic technology that’s not been brought to the market in any kind of reliable form that consumers have any interest in,” John Frazer, director of research and information at the National Rifle Association (NRA), told CNSNews.com.

These “smart gun” technologies are “designed to prevent misuse, to prevent either accidents or crimes committed with stolen guns,” Frazer noted. “Obviously it wouldn’t have any effect on crimes committed with a gun purchased by the criminal. It obviously wouldn’t have any effect on suicides by people who bought the guns themselves.” However, “it could have a huge burden on self-defense rights of law-abiding people if they’re forced to use an unproven technology.”

The CDC’s findings - that guns are an effective and often used crime deterrent and that most firearm incidents are not fatal - could affect the future of gun violence research..

The report establishes guidelines meant only for future “taxpayer-funded research,” Frazer said. However, “the anti-gun researchers out there who want to study and promote gun control are perfectly free to get funded to do that by [New York] Mayor Bloomberg or by any number of other organizations or foundations.”

“It depends on who’s doing the research,” Frazer added. “I would be very concerned that a lot of the follow-up research that might come from this agenda would be more of what we’ve seen from the anti-gun public health establishment in the past.”

Calls and an email from CNSNews to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence were not returned..

According to a National Academies press release, organizations supporting the CDC study have close ties to Obama.

When contacted by CNSNews, the Annie E. Casey Foundation issued a statement reaffirming its support for the study, which “is in keeping with our work to collaborate with public agencies, nonprofit organizations, policymakers and community leaders to make a positive impact on the lives of kids, families and communities.” Patrick Corvington, the foundation’s former senior associate, was nominated by Obama and confirmed in 2010 as CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Other supporters include The California Endowment, which has been  promoting Obamacare; The Joyce Foundation, on whose  Board of Directors Obama served for eight years prior to his Senate run;  and Kaiser Permanente, which contributed over half a million dollars to his presidential campaign.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

British government encourages sex attacks on women

Populists and knowalls generally treat it as revealed truth that pornography encourages sex crime.  Academics have long argued that porn could in fact REPLACE sex crimes.  The evidence  has now been in for some time now.  It does (See also the article following the article below).  So Britain's porn restrictions will have the opposite effect to that intended.  What a plague on society are people who "just know" the truth

Every householder connected to the internet will have their access to online porn blocked unless they ask to receive it.

In a victory for the Daily Mail, David Cameron will announce the move today among a series of measures cracking down on against the tide of web sleaze.

The Prime Minister will warn that internet pornography – much of it easily accessible to youngsters – is ‘corroding childhood’.

By the end of next year, all 19million UK homes currently connected to the net will be contacted by service providers and told they must say whether family-friendly filters that block all porn sites should be switched on or off.

From the end of this year, all new customers setting up a broadband account or switching provider will have the filters automatically switched on unless they opt to disable them to allow sites with ‘adult content’.

‘The Daily Mail has campaigned hard to make internet search engine filters “default on”. Today they can declare that campaign a success,’ Mr Cameron said.

‘We are taking action to help clean up the internet and protect a generation of children from often extreme online pornography.’

Other measures being announced by Mr Cameron today include adult content filters on all new mobile phones, a bar on accessing adult content through public wi-fi and calling in Ofcom to regulate industry progress. Internet giants such as Google will be told they have a ‘moral duty’ to do more to stop child abuse images being accessed.

Pornography involving simulated rape will be banned both online and offline, and online videos will be subject to the same rules as those sold in sex shops.

There will be stronger powers for watchdogs to investigate the ‘hidden internet’ – heavily encrypted forums and pages that allow abusers to cover their tracks

There has been growing alarm at evidence that a third of children have accessed online pornography by the time they reach ten. Six in ten parents now say they are worried or very worried about their sons and daughters seeing violent and sexual material on the web.

In his landmark speech at the NSPCC, Mr Cameron will say action is more urgent than ever because web access has ‘changed profoundly’ in recent years.

‘Not long ago, access to the internet was mainly restricted to the PC in the corner of the living room, with a beeping dial-up modem, downstairs in the house where parents could keep an eye on things,’ he will say.

Today, there is material freely available that is a ‘direct danger to our children’.

The Prime Minister will add: ‘I’m not making this speech because I want to moralise or scaremonger, but because I feel profoundly as a politician, and as a father, that the time for action has come. This is, quite simply, about how we protect our children and their innocence.’

Mr Cameron will announce that in future deciding about family-friendly filters will be a required part of the set-up process for installing an internet connection.

When existing web users are contacted, family-friendly filters will be pre-selected. Only an adult will be able to change the filter settings and the account holder will receive a confirmation email. Some ISPs are offering text alerts, in case children hack into the account.

Any adult ignoring the alerts will have filters installed automatically.

‘By the end of this year, when someone sets up a new broadband account the settings to install family-friendly filters will be automatically selected. If you just click “next” or “enter”, then the filters are automatically on,’ Mr Cameron will say.

‘And, in a really big step forward, all the ISPs have rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account.

‘No more hassle of downloading filters for every device, just one click protection. One click to protect your whole home and keep your children safe.

‘Once those filters are installed, it should not be the case that technically literate children can just flick the filters off at the click of a mouse without anyone knowing. So we have agreed with industry that those filters can only be changed by the account holder, who has to be an adult. So an adult has to be engaged in the decisions.

‘But of course, all this just deals with the flow of new customers – those switching service providers or buying an internet connection for the first time. It does not deal with the huge stock of existing customers – almost 19million households. So this is now where we need to set our sights.

‘Following the work we’ve already done with the service providers, they have now agreed to take a big step.

‘By the end of next year, they will have contacted all of their existing customers and presented them with an unavoidable decision about whether or not to install family friendly content filters. TalkTalk, who have shown great leadership on this, have already started.

‘We are not prescribing how the ISPs should contact their customers – it’s up to them to find their own technological solutions. But however they do it, there will be no escaping this decision.

‘And they will ensure it is an adult making the choice.’

‘I’m asking Ofcom, the industry regulator, to oversee this work. If they find that we are not protecting children effectively, I will not hesitate to take further action.’

Mr Cameron will announce further measures to tackle extreme pornography, which depicts violence against women, including simulated rape.

‘These images normalise sexual violence against women – and they are quite simply poisonous to the young people who see them.

“The legal situation is that although it’s been a crime to publish pornographic portrayals of rape for decades, existing legislation does not cover possession of this material – at least in England and Wales.

‘Well I can tell you today we are changing that. We are closing the loophole – making it a criminal offence to possess internet pornography that depicts rape.

‘And we are doing something else to make sure that the same rules apply online as they do offline. There are some examples of extreme pornography that are so bad that you can’t even buy this material in a licensed sex shop. And today I can announce we will be legislating so that videos streamed online in the UK are subject to the same rules as those sold in shops.  ‘Put simply – what you can’t get in a shop, you will no longer be able to get online.'

Holly Dustin, of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said:

'We are delighted that David Cameron has responded to the call by experts and women’s groups to ban pornographic images of rape that promote and eroticise violence against women.

'The Coalition Government has pledged to prevent abuse of women and girls, so tackling a culture that glorifies abuse is critical for achieving this.

'The next step is working with experts to ensure careful drafting of the law and proper resourcing to ensure the law is enforced fully.'

SOURCE







More Porn, Less Rape

Over the past two decades, as pornography has become much more easily accessible over the Internet, the rate of rape and sexual assault has declined by about 60 percent, according to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).

The BJS conducts an annual National Crime Victimization survey of more than 100,000 households, asking if anyone has been the victim of various crimes in the past year. In 1995, the rape/sexual assault rate was reported as 5 per 1,000 American women over age 12. In 2011, the rate had fallen to 1.8 rapes/sexual assaults per 1,000.

Meanwhile access to pornography has dramatically increased. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of a fast Internet connection must be in want of some porn,” the journalist Sebastian Anthony joked last year on the website Extremetech. Dozens of porn platforms are among the top 500 sites in terms of traffic, according to Google’s Doubleclick Ad Planner. The largest, Xvideos, draws 4.4 billion page views per month—three times more than CNN or ESPN, and twice as many as Reddit.

A comprehensive 2009 review in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior by the Texas A&M International University psychologist Christopher Ferguson and the University of Texas at San Antonio criminologist Richard Hartley concluded that easy access to porn does not cause rape. “Considered together, the available data about pornography consumption and rape rates in the United States seem to rule out a causal relationship,” Ferguson and Hartley wrote in their summary of the academic literature. “One could even argue that the available research and self-reported and official statistics might provide evidence for the reverse effect; the increasing availability of pornography appears to be associated with a decline in rape.”

The Clemson economist Todd Kendall, in a 2006 study supported by the National Bureau of Economic Research, concluded that “Internet access appears to be a substitute for rape; in particular, the results suggest that a 10 percentage point increase in internet access is associated with a decline in reported rape victimization of around 7.3 percent.” Kendall found that “there is no statistically significant relationship between internet access and any individual FBI index crime (other than rape), including murder, robbery, aggravated assault, robbery, larceny, and auto theft.” Crime rates are plummeting all over, but it’s only rape that appears to be pegged to online connectivity.

SOURCE






Britain's animal Gestapo again

No sense of proportion whatsoever

A retired vet woke to find a police torch being shone into his face when officers raided his home after the RSPCA received a tip-off that his two pet dogs were being maltreated.

A total of 13 officials – police, firemen and RSPCA officers – turned up unannounced in six vehicles at 70-year-old John Spicer’s home and broke down the door to get in while he was asleep.

His sheepdogs Puppy and Little Boy were taken away and Puppy was destroyed immediately.

Mr Spicer was arrested on suspicion of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal.

He had his fingerprints, DNA and mugshot taken and was held in a police cell for 24 hours before being released.

Yesterday he criticised the RSPCA for being heavy-handed and said he has still not been told what has happened to Little Boy.

‘The whole episode was a total over-reaction,’ Mr Spicer said. ‘I was asleep inside and the first thing I knew was a torch being shone six inches from my face by a police officer.

‘I was put barefoot in the back of a police van and told I was being arrested. I was in a cell at a police station for 24 hours.

‘This was the first time ever I’ve been taken to a police station in my life, I have been left shaken by it. It was completely over the top.’

Mr Spicer, who lives in the village of Gobowen near Oswestry, Shropshire, was released after being questioned by officers from the animal welfare charity.

Yesterday an RSPCA spokesman refused to say whether Mr Spicer would face prosecution as the investigation is ongoing.

His ordeal began at around 5pm on July 8 when two RSPCA officers in separate vans, two constables, a sergeant and two PCSOs from West Mercia Police in two cars and a van, plus a fire engine with six firemen on board, turned up at his whitewashed terraced home.

After using a fire engine ladder to peer inside an upstairs window, they broke down the door and let themselves in.

They took away 12-year-old Puppy, which had been suffering ill health due to a spinal injury and had partly lost the use of its legs, as well as ten-year-old Little Boy, Puppy’s brother, claiming they were not being looked after properly.

But Mr Spicer, who was a vet for 30 years, said he had been treating Puppy’s illness, which he described as ‘complicated,’ himself and the dog had been improving.

He said: ‘The police decided there was no case to prosecute. I’ve heard nothing since from the RSPCA.’

Mr Spicer, a bachelor, added that he doesn’t know how he will live without his dogs. ‘I’ve not lived in my house without a dog for 30 years,’ he said. ‘At some stage it is going to hit me that the house is empty.’

Neighbour Mark Breeze, 47, said: ‘I’ve never seen John mistreat an animal in my life, he always looks after his dogs very well. He’s very cut up about it.’

A spokesman for the RSPCA said they had attempted to contact Mr Spicer on numerous occasions after receiving several calls about the welfare of his dogs. It is understood he was reported to the charity several times by a concerned local.

‘We will always attempt to work with owners to safeguard the welfare of their animals,’ the spokesman said.

‘The dog was put to sleep by an independent vet – on their advice as nothing more could be done to help it.

‘A second dog still belongs to the man, it has not been taken permanently, but it will remain in RSPCA care while the investigation continues.

‘The conditions the dog had been living in were not suitable and it is now being treated for a skin condition.’

Anne Kasica, who runs the Self-Help Group, an organisation for animal owners ‘experiencing difficulties with the RSPCA’, said: ‘It’s appalling that an elderly man can be treated this way, but unfortunately we’ve seen it all before.

‘All the RSPCA seem to care about is prosecutions because they bring in donations through publicity.’

Tory councillor David Lloyd, who represents Gobowen, said: ‘Many villagers were angry at the heavy-handed way in which the reclusive Mr Spicer appears to have been treated.’

Tory MP Simon Hart, a former head of the Countryside Alliance, claims the RSPCA is pursuing an ‘aggressive political agenda’ against pet owners which is ‘at odds with animal welfare’.

SOURCE





Police won't name big firms and lawyers who hack phones - to protect their human rights

Lord Justice Leveson's report into hone hacking did not mention blue-chip companies

Police are refusing to publish  the names of law firms, blue-chip companies and celebrities accused of hiring private investigators to break the law – to protect their ‘human rights’.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency has a list of those accused of paying private eyes to dig for information, including using illegal means such as phone hacking.

But yesterday it emerged that the agency, dubbed Britain’s FBI, is suppressing the names, claiming that to publish them might breach the Human Rights Act. It cited Article 8, the right to a private and family life.

The agency also claimed that publishing the list could damage the firms’ commercial interests by tainting them with guilt.

Last night one Tory MP called for the heads of Soca to be sacked if they continue to block the release of the list.

And senior MPs who are investigating the scandal criticised the agency for its lack of transparency.

Labour’s Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, wrote to Soca to ask for ‘all the information Soca holds on private investigators and their links with the police and private sector’.

He said: ‘Soca has indicated that it is prepared to give the client list to us in confidence. This has still not been received. It is a disappointment that this is yet another document the committee has had to receive in secret from Soca.’

He added: ‘In view of the public interest, openness and transparency may be the only way that the public can be reassured that no one is above the law and [that] Soca have done all they can to address this issue.’

Mr Vaz said he will write to the leading 100 legal firms and every firm in the FTSE 100 to ask them if they have ever commissioned private investigators and for what.

On June 24 he wrote to Sir Ian Andrews, the chairman of Soca, to ask him to ‘provide the committee with a list of clients who hired private investigators to break the law that Soca is aware of’, setting a deadline of June 28.

In a letter dated July 12, published on the committee’s website on Wednesday, Sir Ian – a former Ministry of Defence mandarin – said publishing the information could ‘substantially undermine the financial viability of major organisations by tainting them with public association with criminality’. 

The evidence has now been ‘formally classified’, he added.

Detailing his reasons, he said there was a ‘lack of certainty’ over whether the investigators’ clients had ‘guilty knowledge’ and were aware of what was going on. And he said naming them could undermine their right to a private  and family life under the Human Rights Act.

He also cited the ‘possible prejudice which any publication might have on ongoing criminal investigations and future regulatory action’.

He wrote: ‘This reflects the fact that the information it contains, if published, might prejudice individual security or liberty, impede the investigation (or facilitate the commission) of serious crime or substantially undermine the financial viability of major organisations by tainting them with public association with criminality.’

The list of clients stems from a Metropolitan Police investigation codenamed Operation Millipede which led to the jailing of four  private detectives in January last year.

The court heard personal information was ‘blagged’ by private investigators who impersonated targets while phoning banks, building societies and telephone companies.

But no details of the men’s alleged clients came out in court.

Last month it emerged that a Soca report into private investigators that was submitted to the Leveson Inquiry – but not mentioned in Lord Justice Leveson’s report or published on the inquiry website – alleged widespread misbehaviour by businesses other than the media.

The confidential document, codenamed Project Riverside, contained intelligence material on the wider use of private investigators outside the media.

It alleged that law firms, insurance companies, wealthy individuals and even councils were paying for information.

One hacker reportedly said that 80 per cent of his client list was blue-chip companies and high-profile individuals, with the rest relating to the media.

Questions have been asked on why little apparent action has been taken either to disrupt this trade in information or to target those paying for it.

They are reported to include a corporate giant, a celebrity broadcaster, a media personality and a wealthy businessman.

Both Sir Ian and Trevor Pearce, the agency’s director general, were summoned to return before the MPs after details of what the agency knew, which date back six years or more, came to light.

The agency has agreed to allow Mr Vaz and members of the committee to see a copy of the list of names, on the condition it is not made public.

Backbench Tory MP Rob Wilson called for both Sir Ian and Mr Pearce to be sacked if they continue to block the release of the list of names.

The MP for Reading East said in a letter to Home Secretary Theresa May last night: ‘It is entirely unacceptable for Soca to put its own reputation and commercial interests before its duties to the public in tackling serious criminality.

‘Many people will rightly see Soca’s actions as an abuse of the Official Secrets Act and the Human Rights Act. It appears that Soca is in danger of losing its way in taking the decisions it has.

‘Tackling serious and organised crime is an incredibly important function in a civilised country. It will be difficult for the public to have confidence in Soca while it appears there is one law for the rich and powerful, and another for the rest.’

Scotland Yard’s continuing investigations into newspapers are expected to cost nearly £40million by the time they conclude in  April 2015

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

Thousands of British career criminals let off with Community Orders immediately re-offend by committing burglaries and robberies

Thousands of career criminals let-off with a slap on the wrist are immediately committing new burglaries, robberies and other offences.

In a damning report, the Ministry of Justice revealed that – even when offenders had 16 or more convictions – the courts were still handing them a Community Order.  Unsurprisingly, the response of the hardened convicts was to carry on offending.

More than half – the equivalent of 10,000 convicts – were caught breaking the law all over again within 12 months.

The revelations will re-ignite the debate over soft justice.  An estimated 60,000 criminals escape jail despite having committed at least 15 previous crimes.  But instead of severe punishment these repeat offenders regularly emerge from court with community sentences, suspended jail terms or fines.  Of these, around 20,000 got a community order.

They are supposed to consist of tough community payback, but have long being derided as too ‘soft’ by critics.

The report says that 51 per cent of offenders with 16 or more previous convictions given a Community Order re-offended.  This compared with only four per cent of those with no previous convictions. Overall, 35 per cent of convicts on community orders broke the law again within 12 months of being released.

There were also huge differences in between different types of criminal.  Some 56 per cent of thieves, burglars and fraudsters went on to commit a new offence. For sex offenders, this fell to 11 per cent. More than half of offenders on community orders who had abused drugs reoffended.

Separate national figures show more than three quarters of criminals given a prison sentence had previously received a community order in 2012.

Ministers also published figures showing that -  when criminals were tipped back on to the streets after serving a jail sentence of less than 12 months - six out of every ten reoffended.

Currently anybody imprisoned for less than a year is released with no probation monitoring.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling is changing the rules so that, for the first time, anybody released from prison from a shorter sentence will be supervised, normally by a charity or the private sector.  He said the research showed the urgent need for a change to the system.

Criminals given slightly longer than 12 months behind bars, who therefore qualified for supervision under the old regime, were up to 17 percentage points less likely to reoffend than those given the shorter sentences.

Mr Grayling said: ‘These figures show supervision works. It is vital that offenders receive proper through-the-gate support so they can begin facing up to the issues causing them to commit crime after crime, creating misery in our communities.

‘Our depressing reoffending rates have dogged successive governments for decades and we must act now to finally turn the tide on this unacceptable problem.’

SOURCE






Britain's  Work and Pensions Secretary blasts BBC for 'politically-motivated' criticism of his benefits shake-up

Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith today accused the BBC of launching a ‘politically-motivated’ attack on government plans to cap benefits at £26,000.

In an extraordinary on-air blast, the Work and Pensions Secretary accused the Corporation of using ‘lots of little cases’ to claim that limiting welfare payments would not get people back to work.

The confrontation live on Radio 4’s Today programme marks a significant escalation in the political row between Mr Duncan Smith and the BBC over reforms to the benefits system.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith accused the BBC of trying to undermine his welfare reforms

From today the maximum amount of benefits a family can claim will be capped at £26,000 a year – a figure equal to a pre-tax salary of more than £34,000.

A poll today reveals that almost three-quarters of the public back the cap, with two-thirds saying it will help get people on benefits back into work.

Mr Duncan Smith was grilled by BBC presenter John Humphrys, after the Today programme aired an interview with one benefits claimant who said she did not want to leave her home in London to find work.

As the debate heated up, Mr Duncan Smith insisted many working people who commute long distances every day.

He added: ‘The reality is there are plenty of families out there working and paying their taxes who will be asking this question: “Why are we arguing about this, why having a debate as to whether or not somebody should be earning more than they are on welfare payments not working?”’

Mr Humphrys intervened to argue: ‘But that’s not the point I am putting to you.’

Mr Duncan Smith then tore into the BBC’s attempts to undermine his reforms. He hit back: ‘No, cos what you are doing as always happens in the BBC is seeking out lots of little cases from people who are politically motivated to say this is wrong.’

Mr Humphrys said: ‘There are facts and beliefs and you can believe whatever you like.’

The minister responded: ‘The facts we have got, the fact is that people will not be earning more than average earnings sitting out of work unless they are in the exempt categories.

‘The way to resolve that is to go back to work, to earn your money so that as a result of that you no longer are capped. This is the incentive to take the right choices, it’s fair to taxpayers.’

Under the benefits cap, couples and lone parents will not receive more than £500 a week under the new cap, with single people limited to £350 a week.

The coalition argues it is fair on people who do work and pay taxes that those on state-funded benefits do not receive more than the average working family.

An Ipsos Mori poll commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions found that just 11 per cent of the public think the benefits system is working effectively.

Some 59 per cent said they wanted politicians to do more to cut Britain’s welfare bill. A total of 74 per cent said they supported the benefits cap.

However, during today’s radio clash Mr Humphrys insisted: ‘We are arguing because it isn’t working. Nobody argues with the principle, that people who are capable of working, they should work.

‘The question is whether your scheme is going to do what it sets out to do, and the evidence such as it is - admittedly little so far - seems to suggest it doesn’t work.’

Mr Duncan Smith, who repeatedly interrupted to insist his reforms are working, responded: ‘I believe we are right.  ‘That what we are seeing, and this is the view of lots of people working in Jobcentres.

‘That they are getting people who were notified of the cap, their belief – this is advisers, they talk to me., I have been out on the ground, I have seen it myself, I talk to people actually in the Jobcentres – our belief generally is that they are going to seek work where they might not have sought work.’

Relations between the senior Tory and the BBC deteriorated in April after he was ambushed on air over whether he was challenged over whether he could live on £53-a-week by market trader David Bennett.  But questions were later raised about the true level of Mr Bennett's income.

Mr Duncan Smith has also heavily criticised the BBC's use of the phrase 'bedroom tax' to describe changes to housing benefit.

The government says it is ending the 'spare room subsidy' for people receiving taxpayer support for rooms they do not need.

But the Corporation took to using Labour's 'bedroom tax' slogan, which Mr Duncan Smith said was a 'disgrace'.

However, charities criticised the introduction of the benefits cap. Matthew Reed, chief executive of the Children's Society, accused the Government of trying to use a 'blunt instrument' to solve a complex problem.

He added: 'The debate around this cap has focused solely on workless adults, but the reality is that children are seven times more likely than adults to lose out.

'140,000 children, compared to 60,000 adults, will pay the price as parents have less to spend on food, clothing and rent.

'We fully support efforts to make work pay. But it is not right to do this by putting more children on the breadline. Instead, the Government should do more to help families by tackling the sky high rents in some parts of the UK and making childcare affordable.'

SOURCE





Homeland Insecurity

If there's any doubt the FBI's gone soft on Islamic terror and may be overlooking more Boston-style plots, witness the bureau chief's recent Hill testimony.

In a testy exchange with Republican lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Robert Mueller reluctantly acknowledged FBI counterterrorism training materials have been purged of references to "jihad" and "Islam" and that counterterrorism agents have been restricted from doing undercover investigations at mosques.

These outrageous policies likely contributed to the FBI missing signs of radicalization in the Muslim community — including that of the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston. The marathon bombers operated in plain sight of the FBI before killing three and wounding 260.

During the hearing, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, blasted Mueller for concluding his agency had done an "excellent" and "thorough job" protecting the public and for saying he didn't know what more could have been done to disrupt the marathon bombing plot.

Gohmert also read aloud from IBD's recent editorial on the subject, "Obama's Snooping Excludes Mosques, Missed Boston Bombers."

Mueller confirmed that instead of investigating the militant Boston mosque where the bomber brothers were radicalized, the FBI partnered with it for political "outreach."

Asked if he was aware the mosque was co-founded by a convicted terrorist cited by the Treasury Department as an al-Qaida fundraiser, Mueller sheepishly replied, "I was not."

The same mosque also has graduated several other convicted terrorists. The FBI helped put all these terrorists behind bars, yet didn't tie them back to the mosque. If the bureau had, it would have seen something rotten with the leadership there.

FBI documents recently released from the 9/11 investigation of al-Qaida cleric Anwar Awlaki reveal he was a close associate of the current lead imam of that same Boston mosque. Yet agents still reached out to the imam as a trusted "partner."

The FBI, moreover, had the Tsarnaev brothers on its anti-terrorist radar — thanks only to a tip from Russian intelligence — yet didn't track them back to the mosque or monitor their behavior at that mosque.

Even with the brothers' photos and case files in the FBI database, the bureau had to appeal to the American people to ID the evil jihadists on national TV.

It's a sorry — and scary — state of affairs when the director of the FBI and his field agents know less than the public about major threats from Islamic fanatics living among us.

Mueller wasn't always Mr. Magoo. Who put the PC blinders on him? Eric Holder.

In October 2011, the attorney general quietly put in force two policies that have made the nation far more vulnerable to homegrown terrorism.

For one, he set up a special review committee to curb mosque investigations, classifying the names of the reviewers, who reportedly may include outside parties.

Also that month he ordered a review of all FBI counterterrorist training manuals "to identify and correct any material that may be construed as offensive to someone of the Islamic faith," according to a directive sent to all FBI field offices.

Reviewers proceeded to purge references to "jihad" and "Islam" in connection to terrorism.

Mueller told Gohmert that the names of the Islamic "subject matter experts" who helped conduct the review remain classified.

What this means is that shadowy and unaccountable Islamic sympathizers are now effectively running counterterror programs. Feel safer?

It's plain that political correctness is hindering efforts to stop Islamic terrorists before they strike.

Until we purge PC from law enforcement, we won't truly be safe from future Bostons.

SOURCE





Told that Norway is the West’s most anti-Semitic country, diplomat lashes out at Israel

A prominent Norwegian historian and a senior diplomat from her country wrangled over the Scandinavian’s country’s anti-Semitism and anti-Israel record, trading barbs at a heated panel discussion in Jerusalem.

Hanne Nabintu Herland, a historian of religion, bestselling author and self-described “social pundit,” accused Norway of being “the most anti-Semitic country in the West” and attacked the government in Oslo for “biased support for only the Palestinian views.”

Representing the Norwegian Embassy in Tel Aviv, deputy head of mission Vebjørn Dysvik rejected the claims yet admitted that his government had work to do regarding anti-Jewish sentiment within Norwegian society. He also said that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and 1978 invasion into Lebanon — which he said was “not Israel’s finest hour” — contributed to a mainly negative view of Israel among ordinary Norwegians.

“The degree of anti-Israelism in Norway today on the state level, in the media, in the trade unions and at the universities, colleges and schools is unprecedented in modern Norwegian history,” Herland said at a panel organized by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “The powerful individuals that have pushed for these negative and biased attitudes in Norway are today responsible for creating a politically-correct hatred towards Israel that today portrays my country internationally as the most anti-Semitic country in the West.”

Herland quoted several surveys and anti-Semitism reports that showed, among other worrying trends, that “Jew” is the most often used curse word in Oslo schools and that a third of Jewish children feel continuously bullied. She also mentioned a widely-quoted June survey that showed that 12 percent of Norwegians harbored “strong anti-Jewish prejudices” and that more than a third of the population believes Israel’s treatment of Palestinians “was analogous to Nazi actions against Jews.”

About 2,000 Jews live in Norway, concentrated mostly in Oslo and Trondheim.

Dysvik, a minister counsellor at Oslo’s Tel Aviv embassy, responded to Herland’s remarks by portraying his country as one that does not tolerate anti-Semitism but was trying to be an honest broker in the Middle East peace process. Norway only chaired the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, which coordinates development assistance to the Palestinians, because both sides in the conflict explicitly asked for Oslo’s help in implementing a two-state solution, he asserted. Dysvik did not, however, pretend that relations with Israel are smooth or that most Norwegians have a positive image of Israel.

Norway’s vote was crucial in Israel’s joining the United Nations and initially, Oslo was a staunch supporter of the Jewish state, he said. But in the 1970s and 1980s, things changed: Israel captured and occupied the West Bank and, in 1978, invaded south Lebanon, seeking to restrain Palestinian terrorism emanating from this area.

“The occupation of the Palestinians is the defining factor in the relationship between Norway and Israel,” Dysvik said, in a comment atypical for diplomats of allied countries, who usually focus on shared history or common goals and values when describing bilateral relations. “A 45-year-long occupation of the Palestinian territory is redefining the relationship.”

The Foreign Ministry noticed the unfriendliness of the diplomat’s remarks but said it was used to such statements from Oslo.

“It’s quite unusual for a diplomat to speak so harshly, but he’s not saying anything we don’t know,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. “This is precisely what we protest about Norwegian politicians and diplomats — that they make it a one-issue relationship, one-dimensional, and define it in what we think are unfair terms.”

But Herland, the Norwegian historian and author, suggested that Oslo’s stance toward Israel and Norwegian anti-Semitism were closely related: “Anti-Israelism is anti-Semitism’s new face in Europe,” she proclaimed during Monday’s panel.

Wearing a large golden Star of David around her neck, Herland slammed Norway for refusing to create a national list of groups recognized as terrorist organizations. “Today, the radical left-wing government silently accepts Hamas’s demand for ethnic cleansing of the Jewish minority, while foreign ministers like Jonas Gahr Støre pose no major remarks — until a late interview in 2011, as if the political pressure was so great that he felt obliged to at least say something. But even then the talks [with] and support for Hamas continued.”

Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, has a policy of engaging with Hamas, because the group “represents a significant part of Palestinian society” and is “a social, political, religious, and also a military reality that will not simply go away as a result of Western policies of isolation,” according to Støre. “There are constituencies within Hamas that seem open to dialogue and there are signs that these parts of the movement might be willing to support a two-state solution and recognize Israel’s right to exist,” he wrote last year in an article.

“It is not surprising,” Herland said, “that anti-Semitism and hostility towards Israel is a major problem in a country where even on state level there is such biased support for only the Palestinian views of the conflict,” she said.

However, the diplomat admitted that there was work to be done. Oslo was very disturbed by the survey’s finding that 38 percent of Norwegians compare Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews, he said. “This means that we are failing probably in our schools, both to teach people about what’s happening in Israel today but also of course maybe we really need to step up our efforts in teaching people about the Holocaust. The government is doing precisely that.”

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

A revitalised monarchy fills the chasm left by Britain's dreary politicians

At not quite two days old, the new Prince is already a national debt-buster. Though hardly Keynes in nappies, the future king is doing his bit for the economy. Bells and cash registers ring in his honour as a jubilant (if hard-up) populace prepares to sink £243 million into buggies, booties and beer over the next fortnight. This monarch-in-waiting, ushered into the world by a proclamation on a golden easel and a tide of tweets, was born on a cusp of history and modernity.

His arrival heralded the legal change allowing a first-born daughter to be Queen. He will, assuming Commonwealth leaders concur, be free to marry someone of any faith or none. The country he will inherit will be a land of blazing summers and technological marvels, in which white Britons may be a minority.

Not long ago, republicans dreamed of another tweak. They imagined that by 2070, when this prince might expect to reign, Britain would have abolished an institution long stained by scandal. In 1817, the Morning Chronicle called upon royal bachelors to marry for the sake of the succession, imperilled because not one of the 56 grandchildren of George III was legitimate. In 1936, a king abdicated for love. In 1997, a prime minister bailed out the monarchy from what, under the modern media strobe light, seemed its gravest crisis.

Tony Blair, who announced in his first manifesto that “Labour has no plans to replace the monarchy”, helped rescue a Queen estranged from her people after Diana’s death. The Windsors never pardoned him for that PR feat and other perceived impertinences, leaving him – and Gordon Brown for good measure – off the guest list for Prince William’s wedding.

The nadir of royal fortunes, when only 48 per cent of Britons thought the nation would be worse off without the monarchy, gave way to a spike of popularity after the Queen’s Jubilee. The current carnival atmosphere, coupled with reverential BBC coverage of a future king’s birth, suggests that many voters, given a choice, might choose to hang on to their Royal family but dump their politicians.

While no monarchy dare rely on the vagaries of public opinion, the British model, dating back to King Egbert in the 9th century, has survived partly because it realises that republics take over only when monarchies have become unsustainable. Thus, the Royal family has changed, albeit in an incremental (some would say sclerotic) manner. The “magical monarchy” may, in the view of the constitutional historian, Vernon Bogdanor, end up as a “practical monarchy”.

That may not mean bicycles and bus passes, but it would rightly involve more scrutiny. By the time Baby Cambridge takes over, funding may be tighter and more transparent. It is hard to see how the king could continue to be head of an established Church to which most of his countrymen do not subscribe. Though flying cars and glass coaches may co-exist, and though birthright may still bedevil a fairer society, any shrewd monarch knows that survival depends on renewing one’s lifeline to the people.

Political leaders have yet to absorb that lesson. In piecemeal ways, such as bringing in gay marriage, David Cameron has altered Britain, but he has not changed a Tory party whose future is contested by an immutable old guard and a hard-edged group of newcomers who see the Eighties as a golden age that must be recreated if Britain is again to prosper.

For Labour, the Thatcher years led to what Stewart Wood, Ed Miliband’s senior strategist, calls “the exhaustion of the old settlement”. On Monday, shortly after the royal baby was born, Ed Miliband headed to a sweltering meeting room to explain how he planned to propel Labour into the 21st century. Ending the automatic affiliation of three million trade unionists and persuading them to opt in to party membership looks either bold or suicidal, since only one in eight Unite members polled by Lord Ashcroft plans to join Labour.

Mr Miliband, sleeves rolled up in shop-floor style, berated Lynton Crosby, the PM’s strategist, and “a politics that stinks”. While some trade unionists and activists applauded his changes, others in the audience warned of financial meltdown. Yet others reported apathy from voters who thought all political parties seemed the same. Those voices are the ones Mr Miliband should heed. Labour’s plan for primaries and community-based resurgence will be popular only if the wide swathe of voters he seeks to court think change has something to offer them.

This has been a grim few weeks for Labour. The senior figures heading off for holiday speaking reassuringly of a “brief Tory resurgence” and the “nasty politics” underpinning that recovery should be fearful. Labour’s lack of clear direction and Mr Miliband’s inability to define himself in the public’s mind have allowed Mr Crosby too often to use him as a blank screen on to which the Prime Minister can project the (unfair) picture of a weak and struggling leader.

However reckless Mr Miliband’s big idea may be, his sentiment is flawless. As he told his audience on Monday: “We want to let the people back in.” Inclusivity, or the semblance of it, has allowed the monarchy to reinvent itself down the ages, while the mausoleums of centralised politics have shut out an electorate that has learnt to glory in estrangement. Whether Mr Miliband can really throw open Fortress Labour depends on whether the people want to “come back in” or throw rocks from the perimeter fence.

Success or failure rests much less on his planned spring showdown over union reform than on whether he can now offer a life-changing deal to voters who, by and large, are more interested in Liam Gallagher and Nicole Appleton than the battered marriage of Mr Miliband and Len McCluskey. As the party leaders head off on holiday, with suitcases full of solemn beach reads and half-drafted conference speeches with gaps for the “policy nuggets” being gestated (they hope) in supportive think tanks, they should keep in their minds the image of a Britain whose emotions they rarely, if ever, witness at first hand.

This Britain is a nation of tolerant optimists, who cheer on Ashes victors even if they don’t like cricket, who laud a Tour de France winner even if they last cycled when three-speed Sturmey-Archer gear sets were cutting edge, and who smile on a royal birth even if they would have been content for the monarchy to expire with Ethelred the Redeless.

Some of those celebrating the arrival of the royal baby have the Union flag tattooed on their souls. For others, cupcakes, bunting and an event with which all citizens can identify help fill the chasm left by politicians who are struggling, and so far failing, to inspire hope for the future while touching human lives.

The monarchy is not simply the celebrity wing of the constitution, there to sell bibs and Babygros and appeal to the maudlin nature of sentimental crowds. As an emblem of stability and renewal in hard times, it is also proof that institutions that fail to modernise will surely die. For all its flaws, our monarchy has much to teach our politicians.

SOURCE





Five prison officers suspended after Lee Rigby murder suspect Michael Adebolajo loses two teeth 'in melee' at Belmarsh high-security wing

Suspending the officers was just a politically correct pretence that there was wrong on both sides

Five prison officers have been suspended after one of the men accused of hacking off-duty soldier Lee Rigby to death in Woolwich had two teeth knocked out.

The men were suspended from their duties from top-security Belmarsh Prison in south London after the alleged attack on Michael Adebolajo, 28, three days ago.

He had refused to obey officers’ instructions and had to be restrained, according to prison sources.

It is understood that five officers have to be on hand when Adebolajo leaves his cell.

Four of the officers were suspended on Thursday, while the fifth was suspended yesterday.

All of the officers are on full pay pending the results of the investigation.

Peter McParlin, chairman of the Prison Officers Association, accused the Ministry of Justice of over-reacting to the situation.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We have spoken to our members and on the basis of what our members have told us they have done absolutely nothing wrong.

'We are concerned that the Ministry of Justice have over-reacted due to the notoriety of this prisoner.'

Mr McParlin criticised the MoJ for failing to 'correct false reporting of the incident at Belmarsh.

He said restraint techniques were designed to minimise injuries to staff or prisoners 'but sometimes there are unforeseen consequences in any violent incident'.

Mr McParlin added: 'Some people have the idea that somehow it's a sitcom like Porridge. I'm afraid the reality of the modern prison system is far different from that.

He told the Times: ‘We feel that the Ministry of Justice have let the staff down here.

‘They have suspended five of our members but that does not necessarily mean they are guilty of anything.’

Adebolajo’s brother Jeremiah said Adebolajo telephoned after the incident, saying that he was bleeding and had lost the teeth.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice confirmed that police are investigating the incident.

She said: ‘I can confirm five members of staff have been suspended while there is a police investigation on going.’  She added that this was ‘not unusual’.

Adebolajo has been charged with murder and possession of a revolver, and also charged with the attempted murder of two police officers.

His alleged accomplice, Michael Adebowale, is charged with murder and possession of a firearm for the May 22 attack outside Woolwich barracks.

In a statement earlier this week, the POA said the officers involved 'strenuously deny any wrongdoing' and that the prisoner had been 'subjected to restraint using techniques' which are 'only used where necessary'.

It added: 'The POA will be supporting them legally and emotionally during this difficult time.

'The use of restraint is only used where necessary when dealing with incidents up and down the country.

'The POA will fully co-operate with any police investigation and are hopeful that this matter will be resolved quickly and we expect the officers to be completely exonerated.'

Adebolajo, from Romford, east London, complained about his treatment at the hands of prison staff during a court appearance last month.

During the June 5 hearing via video-link from the prison, he was flanked by prison officers in full riot gear.

Belmarsh staff asked for him to be handcuffed on the basis he was ‘unpredictable’ and had refused to comply with their orders.

The judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, terminated the video-link after Adebolajo launched into a series of rants against prison staff.

The unit in which he is being detained has the highest security classification in the country, and holds notorious terror suspects and dangerous felons.

Inmates have included Al Qaeda preacher Abu Qatada until his deportation earlier this month, and fanatic Abu Hamza, who was extradited to the US last year.

The cost of keeping each inmate in the unit is estimated at £65,000 a year.

A November 2009 inspection report on Belmarsh criticised the ‘extremely high’ amount of force used to control inmates at the prison, and said large numbers of inmates claimed they had been intimidated by prison staff.

A Prison Service spokesman said: ‘The police are investing an incident which took place at HMP Belmarsh on July 17.

‘It would be inappropriate to comment while the investigation is ongoing.’

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that an allegation of assault was passed to the Metropolitan Police on July 17 by Belmarsh Prison. An investigation has been started.’

Rigby, 25, a father of one from Middleton, Rochdale, died from multiple wounds after he was attacked in the street.

SOURCE





Coverup:  The 102 top firms who hired hackers... but the police won't name them

The true extent of the ‘secret’ phone-hacking scandal involving law firms, insurers and high-profile business people was laid bare last night.

More than 100 companies and individuals are suspected of fuelling the trade in illicit information obtained by hacking, blagging and theft.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency finally handed an explosive list containing 102 names to MPs yesterday.  But, to the fury of members of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, it insisted that it remain secret to protect those involved.

Last month it emerged that as long ago as 2008 Soca compiled a dossier outlining how firms and individuals hired ‘unscrupulous’ private investigators.

They broke the law to obtain sensitive information including mobile phone records, bank statements and other personal data.

However, the report – which showed the practices went far wider than the media – was suppressed and did not form part of Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry. He refused to admit the documentation, saying it was outside his narrow terms of reference.

Critics question why the media has been the subject of a public inquiry and multi-million-pound criminal investigation while others ‘got away with it’.

Lawyers, insurers, money exchanges and high-profile individuals fuelling the trade for sensitive information were never prosecuted.

But journalists were dragged out of their beds at dawn, arrested and questioned over allegations of phone hacking and bribing public officials.

No one at Soca appeared to push the report forward as three Scotland Yard inquiries focused almost entirely on the media.

Last night, after weeks of demands from MPs for the identities of businesses and individuals involved to be published, Soca finally agreed to let the Home Affairs Committee see the list – but only under strict rules of confidentiality.

It demanded the list be ‘kept in a safe in a locked room, within a secure building and that the document should not be left unattended on a desk at any time’.

Initially, Soca wanted only committee chairman Keith Vaz to have access to the documents.

Officials claimed that publishing the names could harm the commercial interests of those involved and even ‘breach their human rights’.

In theory, the move prevents the committee from making public the names or referring to them in any subsequent report.

But last night Mr Vaz, who has led questioning of Soca’s shortcomings, said he would try to find a way of releasing the names.

He said: ‘Those companies or individuals who either instructed private investigators to break the law or did nothing to stop them must be held to account.’

Mr Vaz said police had claimed any publicity could undermine ongoing or future criminal investigations, but added: ‘These events took place up to five years ago. I will be writing to the police to ask in how many cases their investigations are ongoing.’

Committee member James Clappison attacked the secret arrangements, saying: ‘I do not believe the full extent of phone hacking has been brought out.

‘We need complete transparency and the public needs to know what has been going on. The public were very concerned about the original phone-hacking revelations. There is no reason they should not be concerned about these new revelations.’

Pressure is now mounting on Soca to explain why, at the height of the phone-hacking scandal in 2011, it made no attempt to alert ministers that lawyers, insurance companies and other blue-chip firms were also involved.

In an exchange with Tory MP Nicola Blackwood, Soca director general Trevor Pearce admitted the Home Office had not been contacted to highlight the 2008 report. He said it had been passed to then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, and that had been considered sufficient. But Mrs Smith and the Labour government had departed, and the current Home Secretary, Theresa May, had no way of knowing what had been going on.

It meant that when the Leveson terms of reference were being drawn up, ministers were in the dark about the activities of legal firms, insurers and others.

Last night Miss Blackwood said: ‘In a separate report in 2010, Soca identified private investigators as one of four key sources of police corruption.  ‘I cannot understand why they did not make these points to the Home Office when the Leveson Inquiry terms of reference were being set.’

SOURCE





Making poor people poorer

Why do those concerned about low incomes never criticise sin taxes?

The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released a new report on the state of household finances. The Effects of Taxes and Benefits on Household Income, 2011/2012 contains many valuable nuggets of information and different commentators across the political spectrum have found something to gloat about.

So, for example, in a pointed prod at left-wing journalist Owen Jones, Toby Young in the Telegraph blogs about the fact that income inequality has fallen in recent years, to the point where one measure of inequality, the Gini coefficient, is now back to 1986 levels. On the other hand, left-leaning Twitter users have noted that tax takes a bigger slice of income for the poorest 20 per cent of the population (36.7 per cent of gross income) than it does for the top 20 per cent of earners (34.5 per cent of gross income). (See this snapshot from the report.)

How can that be? The difference comes from indirect taxes - that is, taxes on expenditure rather than income and property. On income taxes alone, the richest 20 per cent pay three-and-a-half times as much tax, as a proportion of income, than the poorest. Yet that progressive taxation is completely reversed by the effect of tax on spending. The biggest expenditure tax is value-added tax (VAT) at 20 per cent. For poorer people, over 10 per cent of their gross household income goes on VAT. So cutting VAT would be a big boost to lower-income groups.

But nearly seven per cent of gross income for poorer people goes on what might be loosely defined as ‘sin’ tax - that is, tax on boozing, smoking and driving. If you really wanted to help out households that are strapped for cash, you could start by reducing taxes that are justified as an attempt to change our bad habits. However, it seems unlikely that anti-poverty groups will have much to say on the matter.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

Sisters make you conservative?

There has been a bit of talk from both sides of politics about a recent study which appears to show that having sisters makes you conservative.  I am mildly amused that the feminists at Mother Jones deigned to notice it.  Don't they see women as a radicalizing influence?  If not, do they concede that they are not representative of women in general?  Sounds like lose, lose for them to me.

A basic problem seems to be a failure to stick to what the study actually found.  To help clarify that I reproduce the journal abstract below:

Childhood Socialization and Political Attitudes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

By Andrew Healy & Neil Malhotra

Scholars have argued that childhood experiences strongly impact political attitudes, but we actually have little causal evidence since external factors that could influence preferences are correlated with the household environment. We utilize a younger sibling’s gender to isolate random variation in the childhood environment and thereby provide unique evidence of political socialization. Having sisters causes young men to be substantially more likely to express conservative viewpoints with regards to gender roles and to identify as Republicans. We demonstrate these results in two panel surveys conducted decades apart: the Political Socialization Panel (PSP) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). We also use data collected during childhood to uncover evidence for a potential underlying mechanism: families with more female children are more likely to reinforce traditional gender roles. The results demonstrate that previously understudied childhood experiences can have important causal effects on political attitude formation.

What the abstract above does not make entirely clear is that if your YOUNGER sibling was a sister, you were found to be more conservative than if you had a younger brother.  The study looks not at sisters generally but only at younger sisters.

I am afraid that I have to ask:  What about elder sisters?  Or indeed what about total sisters?  This focus on younger sisters only seems fishy to me.  My provisional conclusion has to be that they reported on younger sisters because it was only younger sisters who showed any effect.  In that case something totally different from what the authors infer is going on.  I would draw no conclusions from the study.

Below is part of the Mother Jones comment on the study:

Lots of people have been looking to science to explain the differences between Democrats and Republicans. Mother Jones' Chris Mooney has published a rundown of all the brain differences suspected in the gulf between liberals and conservatives. But a new study by researchers from Loyola Marymount University and Stanford University's business school suggests another factor may play a role in forming the political brain: the gender of one's siblings. According to the study, boys with only a sister were 15 percent more likely to identify as a Republican in high school, and they were 13.5 percent more conservative in their views of women's roles than boys who only had brothers.

The reason for this difference? Not genes or neural pathways, but something more mundane: housework. The researchers speculate that boys take their cues about women's roles from an early age, and that girls tend to be assigned more traditional chores when they have a brother. Watching their sisters do this housework "teaches" boys that washing dishes and other such drudgery is simply women's work. Boys with only brothers don't seem to have this problem because the chore load at home tends to be spread around more equally. The impact on men's gender perceptions is long term, but the stark partisanship fades somewhat as men get older, the researchers say.

Perhaps even more important than the impact sisters have on men's political views is the way sisters may influence how their brothers turn out as husbands. The study found that boys with sisters grow up to be men who don't help much around the house. The researchers' data show that middle-aged men who grew up with a sister are 17 percent more likely to say their spouses did more housework than they did compared with men who had only brothers. The study suggests this might mean men's views of gender roles are permanently affected by their childhood environment. Girls weren't affected by having brothers or sisters.

The results seemed to surprise the researchers, who thought having a sister would have a liberalizing effect on boys.

SOURCE





Whitehall's straight talk: Civil servants told to stop using jargon that confuses people about what the Government are doing

It looks like the end of the road for ‘facilitating’ policies, ‘engaging with stakeholders’ and ‘disincentivising’ waste.

Civil servants have been told to stop using meaningless jargon that confuses people about what the Government is doing.

Instead of peppering policy announcements with buzzwords, Whitehall officials have been told they must address the public in ‘plain English’, according to new guidance.

It is accompanied by a list of more than 30 banned words and phrases which recall the worst of Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister.

Among the banned words and phrases are ‘slimming down’; ‘strengthen’ unless referring to a bridge or other structure; ‘drive’ a policy; or hold a ‘dialogue’ when they mean speaking to people.

Also unacceptable are ‘foster’ unless it refers to children, ‘deploy’ unless it’s a lethal weapon, and ‘deliver’ - the guidance says ‘pizzas, post and services are delivered - not abstract concepts like ‘improvements or priorities’.

The online style guide is published on the government’s new website www.gov.uk which has replaced those for individual departments, so all the information the public need is one place.

However it is not to be referred to a ‘one stop shop’ - that term is firmly on the banned list, accompanied by the advice ‘we are government, not a retail outlet’.

Civil servants are told announcements will be wasted if no-one can understand them.

‘We lose trust from our users if we write government ‘buzzwords’ and jargon. Often, these words are too general and vague and can lead to misinterpretation or empty, meaningless text.’

Instead they should use ‘buy’ instead of ‘purchase’, ‘help’ instead of ‘assist’, ‘about’ instead of ‘approximately’ and ‘like’ instead of ‘such as’, it says.

‘This isn’t "dumbing down"', they are told. ‘Be open and specific. All audiences should understand our content...this is opening up government information to all.’

Although recent announcements suggest some departments still have a way to go.

One from the Home Office about improvements to the visa system says it will give ‘the option for key businesses to complete the biometric enrolment part of applications for their staff from within their own offices, a significant service development that has facilitated the investment of nearly £2bn into the UK.’

Another recent announcement from the Cabinet Office reads: ‘The government is establishing a Global Learning Exchange on impact investment. Impact investment provides capital to deliver both social and financial results.

‘This multi-stakeholder exchange will focus on sharing best practice on ‘what works’ in impact investing. It will provide a shared platform to debate and create ideas as well as inviting new voices to the field.’

But there seems to have some been some improvement since environment department attracted ridicule last year for press notice when began: ‘The High Level Panel on the ‘Global Assessment of Resources for Implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020’ released its first findings at ‘COP 11’ of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) today.’

Steve Jenner, from the Plain English Campaign, said the new rules were welcome after officials have spent years announcing government policies in ‘departmental gobbledygook’.

He said: ‘The fact that much of this is unintentionally hilarious suggests how bad things had become. The Plain English Campaign applauds this attempt to encourage clarity, though, and would be happy to assist any government department in this.’

SOURCE





For years I fought against secret courts breaking up families. At last there's hope

For a long time now, thousands of British families of every class and background have been secretly torn apart by this country’s child protection system in one of the biggest scandals of our age.

Children have been dragged off by the State into the care system and, despite the pleas of their parents, often given to adoptive families.

This has been happening increasingly frequently in a process overseen by a network of Family Courts, which operate in secrecy in every town and city in the land, violating the principle of openness which has underpinned British justice for centuries.

As a result of the decisions of these courts, as many as 12,000 children and babies are taken into care in England each year, the equivalent of 230 or so every single week.

Some are newborns seized by social workers (invariably, flanked by police) in the hospital ward while the mother is breast-feeding or having her first cuddle with her baby.

Many children are removed on the basis of flimsy accusations by social workers: that the parent might shout at the child when he or she becomes a teenager (potential emotional abuse); that the mother has taken a sickly child to the doctor too often (fabricated illness syndrome); or — extraordinarily — simply because the mother has been in the care system herself or suffered depression as a teenager.

In one appalling case in a quiet corner of England, a middle-class mother is currently being threatened with having her children forcibly adopted after she was raped by her husband, who was imprisoned for his crime a few weeks ago.

Social workers say that, despite the fact that her husband has been sentenced to six years and the couple are about to divorce, the wife allowed herself to be raped and therefore cannot protect their children in the family’s home.

It is bad enough that such cruel decisions are being made at all. The fact they are happening in courts where rulings are made in secret is chilling.

Of course, the family courts have an unenviable job — often asked to rule on the most challenging of cases. And some of the parents appearing before them are certainly cruel to their children and ill-equipped to raise a family.

Equally, too many mistakes have been made in a system which can be stacked against the innocent. And the reality is that without transparency, no one will know the truth.

A parent who publicly talks about the hearings (even to a neighbour over the garden fence) or gives documents from the case to their MP, risks prison for contempt — and many have been incarcerated for such ‘crimes’.

And it is not just British parents who have suffered at the hands of secret family courts.

Two weeks ago, representatives of 34 countries, including four ambassadors, gathered at the House of Commons to voice their grave concern to a sympathetic MP, John Hemming, over the astonishing rate that children of foreign families living in the UK are being taken into foster care or sent for adoption.

And last Friday, foreign parents marched to Downing Street to protest about the 6,500 children born here to overseas families who have been taken into care.

Now, after a decade-long campaign against the secrecy of the family courts by this newspaper, there has been a landmark decision by Lord Justice Munby, the most senior family judge in England and Wales.

The veil is to be lifted and light shone onto the 95,000 hearings held each year which decide the lives of so many children.

For the first time, judges’ written reports (or judgments) on custody battles, care orders and the question of whether a child should be re-homed will be published after each hearing — though not including the families’ names — unless there are ‘compelling reasons’ not to do so.

Parents found innocent (or even those who believe their children have been wrongly removed) will be able to apply to speak publicly and tell their story when the hearing is over.

Local councils running the child protection teams forcibly adopting or putting children in care will have to be named in the published judgments.

Also, the medical ‘experts’ hired at a cost of many thousands of pounds by the councils to produce psychological or health reports on the families, will lose their anonymity.

Many of these experts have long ago given up their ‘day jobs’ in the NHS or private practice to live off their lucrative court work. Sometimes, they produce a report on a family  without even meeting them.

And what of the social workers? They are accused by campaigners of distorting evidence against parents to make a stronger case to take children for adoption, thereby winning brownie points with their council bosses. With more openness in the courts, it will be harder for a rogue social worker to push his or her own agenda based on fiction or fabrication.

The new guidance will also extend to cases which affect the welfare of vulnerable adults in the equally shadowy Court of Protection.

Here, life-or-death decisions such as whether to turn off a life-support machine or whether a woman should be forced to take contraception, are also made by a judge in closed hearings. And those who speak publicly about the case are also threatened  with imprisonment.

The UK is the only country in Europe to allow adoption against the will of parents — except ‘possibly Portugal’, according to Baroness Hale, Britain’s most senior female judge, who spoke on the issue in the House of Lords.

In extreme cases of abuse on the Continent, children are given to long-term foster carers or placed in a specialist children’s unit, but the whole ethos is to support troubled families and try to keep them together.

In contrast, parents in Britain — most of whom are never convicted of a crime — are punished with what amounts  to a life sentence by losing  their children.

Yet despite the huge number of children seized here, a fifth never go to an adoptive family — there are simply not enough to go round. They spend their childhoods inside the care system, living either in children’s homes or with frequently changing foster parents.

While this new guidance is an important step in helping to redress some of these wrongs, there is one crucial area it does not address. In the criminal courts, the accused is presumed innocent until found guilty by a jury. In the family courts, this cornerstone of justice does not exist. Guilt is decided on the balance of probabilities.

Campaigners want to see this changed. As one family court lawyer told me recently: ‘Parents accused of harming their children would rather face a criminal trial with a jury, and have their guilt or otherwise decided on proper evidence given under oath, than take their chances in the family court, where it is a complete lottery as to whether you lose your child or not.’

Jean Robinson, a director of the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services, who has witnessed scores of babies being taken from their mothers by social workers at birth, says the system is stacked against the innocent.

‘This same group of child protection “professionals” go round the courts,’ she explained. ‘The council social workers know the so-called medical experts and are paying them to give evidence to bolster their case. The judges know them all. It is far too cosy and secretive.’

Lord Justice Munby has rightly declared his determination to alter the public’s view that these family hearings are ‘a system of unaccountable justice’.

His changes — currently in draft but expected to be implemented imminently — are long overdue.  Too many innocent parents are still  being dragged through these closed trials with no one to hear their voices.

But the truth is that nothing will turn back the clock for the generations of children who will never know, or have long ago forgotten, what a happy family life means.

SOURCE





Unsung Black People

Ann Coulter

It must be hard for young black males to always be viewed as criminals by people who notice crime statistics. We've jawboned that sad story for 40 years. Last week, President Obama ran it around the block again in another speech about himself in reaction to the George Zimmerman verdict.

Let's give that beloved chestnut a rest for a day and consider another way blacks have it harder than whites. Only black people are expected to never speak against their community. Might we spend five minutes admiring the courage of blacks who step forward and tell the truth to cops, juries and reporters in the middle of our periodic racial Armageddons? This one is never discussed at all.

In December 1984, Bernie Goetz shot four black men who were trying to mug him on the New York City subway. (About a year later, one youth admitted that, yes, in fact, they "were goin' to rob him." They thought he looked like "easy bait.")

A few days after the shooting, The New York Times got the racism ball rolling with its "beneath the surface" reporting technique: "Just beneath the surface of last week's debate was the question of whether the shooting may have been racially motivated."

Hoping for support for its below-the-surface thesis, the Times visited the mother of Darrell Cabey, the young man paralyzed from the shooting. As the Times summarized the feeling at the Claremont housing project where Cabey lived, "many people said the four teen-agers were troublemakers and probably got what they deserved."

Cabey's mother had received one letter that said: "[Y]ou get no sympathy from us peace-loving, law-abiding blacks. We will even contribute to support the guy who taught you a lesson, every way we can ... P.S. I hope your wheelchair has a flat tire."

The Washington Post also interviewed Cabey's neighbors. Eighteen-year-old Yvette Green said: "If I'd had a gun, I would have shot him." Darryl Singleton, 24 years old, called Cabey, "a sweet person," but added, "if I had a gun, I would have shot the guy."

As white liberals (and Al Sharpton) screamed "racism!" how'd you like to be the black woman called by the defense at Goetz's trial? Andrea Reid, who was on the subway car during the shooting, testified: Those "punks were bothering the white man ... those punks got what they deserved."

Reid had met the mother and brother of one of Goetz's muggers at a party. But she took the stand and told the truth.

Juror Robert Leach, a black bus driver from Harlem, was one of Goetz's most vehement defenders in the jury room, even persuading the others not to convict Goetz for unlawful possession of any guns, other than the one he used in the shooting. In the end, three blacks and one Hispanic on the jury voted to acquit Goetz of all 13 charges except for the minor one of carrying an illegal firearm.

More brave blacks stepped forward in the Edmund Perry case a year later.

Perry, a black teenager from Phillips Exeter Academy, along with his brother, mugged a cop and ended up getting himself killed. When Perry's brother Jonah was prosecuted for the mugging, two of the witnesses against Jonah were his black neighbors.

One neighbor testified that Jonah told him the night of the incident that his brother was shot when they were mugging someone. Another neighbor said Jonah told her that night that he tried to beat up a guy who turned out to be a cop. This was in a courtroom full of rabble-rousers, amen-ing everything defense lawyer Alton Maddox said.

They told the truth knowing they'd have to go back to the neighborhood. Whatever happened to them? Why aren't they the heroes? Where's their Hollywood movie? There was a movie about the Perry case. It was titled: "Murder Without Motive: The Edmund Perry Story." (The grand jury had no difficulty finding the motive: The cop was being mugged.)

In the middle of one of these racial passion plays, it takes enormous courage for a black person to step forward and say, "Yeah, I heard him say he mugged the cop," "If I had been Bernie Goetz, I would have shot them, too," or "I know George, he's my friend."

That last one was Elouise Dilligard, George Zimmerman's final defense witness. Clear as a bell, this black woman spoke warmly about "my neighbor George" and went on to describe his nose being disfigured and bloody right after the shooting.

You won't see her on CNN, though. In fact, you'll never hear a peep about any of these courageous black people, unless you obsessively research every "race" case of the last 30 years, as I did for my book Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama. (All these black heroes appear in my book.)

Whites never need to be brave this way. There's absolutely no pressure on white people to root for their race. In fact, there's often pressure to root against their race. Instead of being asked to weep over President Obama's ever having been looked at suspiciously (probably by Jesse Jackson), could we reflect on the fortitude of ordinary black citizens who resist "racial solidarity" and speak the truth?

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

"British" gang warfare


Some of the gang members concerned

Greek police investigating the fatal stabbing of a 19-year-old British tourist on Crete have charged a man with the killing, as they claimed the death was the result of 'gang warfare'.

Myles Litchmore-Dunbar has been charged with the murder of Tyrell Matthews-Burton, from Leyton, East London, as well as possession of a weapon.

The London-based 19-year-old is a male model and is studying towards an Economics degree at Northampton University, according to a profile on a modelling website.

Police attributed the murder to gang violence between rival groups from Britain.

'They had scores to settle long before they arrived here,' said a police officer, Yannis Phillipakis, in Heraklion, the island's capital. 'Unofficially, what we are hearing is that they brought their gang warfare to Crete.'

Another Briton also allegedly confessed on Wednesday to participating in the killing, reports The Guardian.

More than a dozen British tourists have also appeared in court on the Greek holiday island after a mass brawl in which Matthews-Burton was pinned down and stabbed to death 'execution-style'.

The youths were taken to stand before the prosecutor on Crete today following the death of 19-year-old Tyrell Matthews-Burton, who was stabbed through the heart.

Today relatives of those arrested said Greek police had simply rounded up everyone who had visited the club that night, irrespective of whether they had been involved or even there at the time of the brawl.

The mother of one of the Britons arrested told MailOnline: 'In those clubs you need ID to get in, so the police simply went around all the hotels arresting everyone who had been there that night, including my son.

'My son didn't know the man who died, and wasn't there when it happened - he had left earlier with some girls.  But they arrested him and put him in handcuffs to take him to court.'

Several of the young men arrested rang their families to tell them they were asked to appear before the court one by one so that a lawyer could decide if they were to be charged or not.

One mother said: 'My son was privately-educated and he is a stockbroker. He had nothing do with it but has been arrested anyway.  The police just rounded everyone up.'

A friend of one of the young men who had blood on his shirt said he was a friend of Mr Matthews-Burton, who had tried to help the teenager after he was fatally injured.

He said: 'He and Tyrell were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  It was nothing to do with gangs - they had just gone on holiday with a group of five friends and it was just bad luck.'

An ambulance was called to the brawl outside the closed bar in the popular town of Malia, which is known for its wild nightlife, but the young man is believed to have died on his way to hospital.

Today Greek coroner Manolis Michalodimitrakis said: 'There were two stab wounds, to the back and to the chest.  'He was clearly pinned down and killed execution style - there were no defence wounds.  'The knife punctured his lung and heart. He lost almost half of his blood.'

Harry Nye, 18, from Kent, said he witnessed the fight, which is understood to have taken place outside the Safari Club in the resort.

He told the Daily Mirror: 'We saw one guy having his head stamped on and this other lad just fell straight. I've never seen that much blood.'

A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: 'We can confirm the death of a British national in Malia, Greece on 23 July.  He added: 'We are aware of the arrests of a number of British nationals in Malia, Crete, on July 23.  'We are in touch with the local authorities and stand ready to provide consular assistance.'

Authorities on the island which is popular with young British tourists on a budget said a post-mortem would be conducted on Crete before the body was repatriated.

SOURCE






Abercrombie & Fitch face legal action in France for only employing 'good looking' staff at flagship Paris store

I don't think this will get far in Paris

American fashion giant Abercrombie & Fitch is under investigation for only employing good looking sales staff at its flagship store in Paris.

Some of the best looking sales assistants in the French capital end up on staff at the shop, which is on the Champs Elysee. Many are so stunning that they often parade topless, inside the store or on the pavement outside.

But now the ‘Defender of Rights’ – an independent watchdog which aims to protect ordinary people from discrimination – says that ugly, fat people should be allowed a job too.

Spokesman Dominique Baudis said that solely employing handsome people not only discriminates against the aesthetically-challenged, but sent out the wrong message to those buying Abercrombie & Fitch’s products.

‘While essential and decisive professional requirements can justify taking physical appearance into account when recruiting models, it is different for sales positions,’ said Mr Baudis.

Mr Baudis highlighted comments made by Mike Jeffries, the Abercrombie & Fitch CEO, in which he said he wanted to recruit ‘good-looking people’ because they attracted ‘other good-looking people’.

Mr Baudis was at the centre of another stir earlier this year when Robin Lewis, author of ‘The New Rules of Retail’, said Jeffries ‘doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store’.

The enquiry into Abercrombie & Fitch has already raised eyebrows in Paris, where everything from shops to restaurants are known for an obsession with style and beauty.

‘Paris didn’t get to become the most beautiful city in the world by employing uglies and fatties,’ said one fashion retailer, who asked not to be named.

SOURCE





British bureaucracy at its best

Boy, 10, sent home from hospital with two legs in plaster but is refused a wheelchair because he 'doesn't live close enough'



A hospital sent a young boy home with both legs in plaster, but refused to give him a wheelchair.

Maddison Warwick, 10, had an operation after being diagnosed with Perthes’ disease - a condition which causes the top of the thigh bone to soften and break down.

But when he was sent home from Royal Bolton Hospital, Greater Manchester, he was told he could not have a wheelchair because he lives in the wrong area.

Maddison lives just five miles from the hospital, but his home is in Radcliffe, Bury, and therefore outside the Bolton boundaries.

He had an operation at Royal Bolton Hospital on July 9 and was sent home two days later.

Both of his legs are covered in plaster and there is a bar between them, meaning the Radcliffe Primary School pupil cannot walk.

But his mother, Jill Warwick, said she was told Maddison could not have a wheelchair because he did not live in Bolton.

Miss Warwick, aged 31, of Ainsworth Road, said: “I asked if I lived in the Bolton borough, would I get a wheelchair, and they said yes. That’s the only reason that they wouldn’t give me a wheelchair.  'We are being discriminated against because we don’t live in Bolton.  'I feel really upset and let down. The hospital knew he would be having the operation there and a care plan should have been put in place.

'I had no choice but to go to Bolton, because there is no children’s unit at Fairfield.'

Maddison will have to spend six weeks in the double-leg cast and Miss Warwick says it is very difficult to take him out of the house.  Miss Warwick, who has two other children, said: 'I have to lift him to move him and he’s sleeping on the sofa. It’s a real struggle.

'Maddison is getting a little bit fed up because he can’t get out. He’s frustrated and upset.'

Sue Ainsworth, the hospital’s professional lead for children’s services, said: 'It is standard practice that we are only able to provide wheelchairs to patients who are Bolton residents.

'As Maddison lives outside the Bolton area, arrangements have been made for a wheelchair to be provided through the paediatric community nursing team in Bury.'

However, Miss Warwick said the nursing team has not given her a wheelchair and she has resorted to paying more than £100 to hire one.

SOURCE






Woman, 21, accuses barber shop of sexism after staff refused to cut her hair because she wasn't a man

Nuisance woman -- to be avoided

A woman has accused a barber shop of sexism after they refused to cut her hair - because she wasn’t a man.

Alice O’Toole wanted to get her 5in-long blonde hair shaved off and patterns shaved into her hair but was left angry and confused' when staff at a barbers told her: 'We don’t do girls'.

Miss O’Toole said she felt 'humiliated' after asking for a Grade 2 or 3 cut with hair stenciling at Razor’s Edge barbers in Portsmouth, Hampshire.

The 21-year-old teaching assistant said: 'I do a lot of exercise and got a bit fed up with getting hot all the time.  'So I decided to get my head shaved and possibly get some hair art, with tribal patterns cut into it.

'I’d heard Razor’s Edge had a very good reputation so decided it would be the perfect place to nip into, but when I went in they refused to serve me.

'They refused in front of a shop full of people, which was very embarrassing - on the grounds that I’m a woman.  'I already had very short hair, so it wasn’t a particularly big job I was asking them to do.

'I thought nothing of going to a barber’s, essentially I wanted a haircut that is typically given to men so surely the best place to go was a barber’s.  'But apparently not. I was told they would not give me essentially a male haircut as I am a woman.

'The receptionist looked very embarrassed as I asked for an explanation and all she could offer is "We don’t do girls", whatever the cut.

'When I asked wasn’t this a bit sexist even she admitted it was. It’s not like I asked for a perm or a girl’s haircut.

'My immediate reaction was: ‘Are you joking?’. It was so humiliating to be told that in front of a shop of 15 people, plus staff, all looking at me.

'I walked out and went to the nearest hairdressers and they gave me a Grade 2, but couldn’t offer the hair art so I didn’t get what I wanted.  'The staff there were disgusted at the way I’d been treated.'

Under the Equality Act 2010, businesses must now justify giving a single-sex service.  This means, for example, a barber shop might say they could not give a woman a perm because it was a style they would not normally do.

Razor's Edge Portsmouth has apologised and the manager said the barber's does not operate a no-women policy or sexist agenda

In a statement, manager Lloyd Hughes said: 'We had a no women policy introduced 20 years ago after being threatened with legal action after trimming a girl’s fringe.

'If we have inadvertently broken the law we will endeavour to put this right immediately.  'The member of staff who served Alice has unfortunately shown ignorance of this change of law in 2010, which we support.  'We do not operate a no-women policy or sexist agenda.

'Cutting women’s and men’s hair does require very different skills and knowledge and hairdressers across the world are trained up specifically as a male or female cutter.  'However we should have provided that service because Alice asked for a men’s cut.  'I am deeply embarrassed and have apologised personally to her.  'She was let down by ignorance of the law and poor customer service.'

Miss O’Toole, from Gosport, Hampshire, later got a tribal freehand pattern at another barber shop, which she is happy with.

She added: 'I was angry and confused as to why I was refused service just because I am a woman.

'I was willing to pay good money for my haircut and give someone the opportunity to get creative with some stencilling in my hair.

'I’ve got no problem with going into a salon and seeing a man getting his haircut there, so why can’t I have the same treatment?

'Lots of women have said to me they have had a similar experience, but if a man can get the same cut there’s no way a business can justify turning a woman away.'

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

Daniel Hannan: We celebrate the Royal family because it symbolises our liberty

The monarchy may reign over us, but it too is subject to the rule of ancient law

 'Félicitations, monsieur!” boomed my normally morose Brussels newsagent.

 Eh? What had I done? “The baby, the prince: you must be delighted!”

 Oh, rather, yes, quite. Decent of you to mention it: très gentil.

 He beamed at me all the way out of his shop. The birth was almost as big an event in the Belgian media as in our own and, like many Bruxellois, the newsagent believed that a little smudge of the happiness that must adhere to every Briton had rubbed off on him through our exchange.

 The night before, within an hour of the prince’s arrival being announced, an American news channel had interviewed me. The universal assumption – from the studio presenter to the sound engineer who tested the volume – was that I had surely stepped away from a street party, to which I’d return, pint in hand, the moment the interview was over.

 Ask a friend overseas what he or she associates with Britain and the chances are that the monarchy will come up within seconds. The Crown defines our brand, in the sense that it is thought to say something about the rest of us. Foreign coverage over the past week has been less about the baby than about the way the British are perceived: as traditional, formal, hierarchical, tied to ancient institutions.

 There’s an element of truth in that caricature. The monarchy is indeed hugely popular: opinion polls show support for a republic to be low and unfluctuating, at around 18 per cent. Although our political arguments are as vigorous as any country’s, we are at least agreed on the legitimacy of the regime: we conduct our arguments, in other words, within rules that almost everyone accepts. When you think of how many different varieties of European government have risen and fallen during the reign of the present Queen alone, this is no small thing,

 Only recently, though, has the monarchy become a unifying national institution. The peoples of Britain spent most of their history being ruled, in effect, by foreigners. For three-and-a-half centuries after the calamity of 1066, French was the language of the English court, and the early kings spent most of their reigns across the Channel. Under the Stuarts and the early Hanoverians, anti-monarchists tended to make their case using nationalist rhetoric. A dying echo of such sentiments can be heard in the republicanism of the BNP.

 The domestication of the British monarchy can be seen in the story of Prince George’s earliest namesakes. The first two Georges, who never mastered our language, were seen as alien and contingent. “George my lawful king shall be / Except the Times shou’d alter,” says the Vicar of Bray, prepared, as always, to abandon the dynasty at the drop of a hat. Not until the final defeat of Jacobitism in 1745 was there broad agreement on who should fill the throne. Our national anthem, which we now think of as a symbol of familiarity and continuity, has, in its full version, a panicky line dating from that year: “Lord, grant that Marshal Wade / May, by thy mighty aid, / Victory bring…”

 It was during the long reign of George III that the British developed something like their present attitude to the monarchy: familiar, proprietorial, half-humorous. As the historian Linda Colley showed in her great book, Britons, the gentle teasing of monarchs, far from being subversive, tended to enhance the sense that they belonged to the nation.

 This aspect of British royalism is almost impossible to explain to foreigners – except those from the Dominions who, of course, are not properly foreign. Royal occasions have a play-acting, imaginative quality that my Brussels newsagent and my American interviewer simply couldn’t see. We Britons know that there is something faintly ridiculous about plucking a baby by genetic lottery and making him the exemplar and repository of our national story. Yet that doesn’t make our support for the institution any the less sincere. The philosopher Roger Scruton put it well when he likened the magic of monarchy to the enchanting light at the top of a Christmas tree, which we perfectly well remember, having climbed up to place it there ourselves.

 This enchantment depends on the sovereigns being – or at least appearing to be – unflashy and unintellectual. When George V, great-great-great-grandfather of the new Prince George, toured an exhibition of French Impressionists, he boomed at his queen, “Look at this, May, this’ll make you laugh!” The idea that we like our monarchs to be blunt and simple is again, in my experience, difficult to get across to people outside the Old Commonwealth.

 Hardest of all, though, is to challenge the idea that Britain is a hidebound, heritage-obsessed nation – an idea that many Britons themselves now fall for. For most of our history, we saw ourselves in precisely converse terms, as a restless, adventurous, innovative race. It is hard to think of a country that has invented and exported so many things: parliamentary democracy, the Boy Scouts, the stock exchange, the spinning jenny, golf, habeas corpus, horse racing, the internet. A single Cambridge college has produced more Nobel Prize-winners than France.

 If our institutions seem old, it’s because they work. The United Kingdom was the only European country to have fought in the Second World War and not, at one time or another, lost. In consequence, we did not have to start afresh in 1945. Our political system had not failed us.

 What we sometimes think of as our character is bound up intimately with our political system. A national culture is not something that hangs numinously alongside institutions; rather, it is a product of those institutions. Ours was the country that came up with the idea that rulers were subject to the law rather than the other way around, and that we should be governed through MPs whom we could hire and fire. Royal rituals that strike so many as medieval flummery – the State Opening of Parliament, for example – are there to exalt that idea.

 British identity subsists in the countless bodies that are too old to be claimed as property by our political leaders: counties, Army regiments, ancient universities, churchwardens, jury trials. These institutions remind us that our government has been kept in check. A monarchy that we simultaneously chuckle at and respect underlines that relationship.

 In the European Parliament, I am often struck by how many of my colleagues grew up under dictatorships. Not just those from the former Comecon states, but the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Greeks and a few of the older Germans and French. Liberty under the rule of law is not the natural state of an advanced society, nor even of an advanced Western society. It is a very specific product of English-speaking civilisation. As late as 1943, democratic freedom was more or less confined to the Anglosphere.

 And that, deep down, is what we’re cheering when we cheer the birth of a new royal baby. Over many centuries, as we have watched our neighbours traumatised by dictators and revolutions, we have been able to feel as you might feel when, warm in your house, you hear the storm shake your windows. We developed and exported the sublime idea that taxes ought not to be raised, nor laws passed, save by our own representatives. That idea was not dreamt up, as in most European constitutions, by a recent convention of bigwigs: it is a birthright inherent in each of us, which the new prince happens to symbolise. That, surely, is something worth cheering.

SOURCE





LGBT Groups Object to New Chairman of Int'l Religious Freedom Watchdog

Princeton University Jurisprudence Professor Robert George, the newly-elected chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, is a leading Catholic thinker and ethicist, but homosexuality advocacy groups are unhappy about the position going to an opponent of same-sex marriage.

The USCIRF is an independent, statutory body established to promote and defend religious freedom abroad. Its remit does not include marriage – or any other domestic issue – in the United States.

Still, George’s election this week to chair the nine-member bipartisan commission for the next year has not pleased some same-sex marriage proponents.

Reporting on the development Thursday, LGBTQ Nation, which describes itself as “America’s most followed LGBTQ news source,” observed that the USCIRF, in its announcement of George's election, failed to mention George’s role in founding “the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM).”

LGBTQ Nation – the acronym stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer/questioning – was also unhappy that the USCIRF had not mentioned George’s association with the Manhattan Declaration.

George co-authored the 2009 document, initially signed by more than 150 Christian leaders – and many more subsequently – who said that civil disobedience may be needed to defend life, marriage and religious freedom in the United States.

After noting that George was also a co-author of the original Federal Marriage Amendment – a bid to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, introduced in Congress numerous times since 2002, without success – LGBTQ Nation added pointedly that “[t]he USCIRF is funded entirely by the federal government on an annual basis and its staff members are government employees.”

In the comments section below the news story, several dozen LGBTQ Nation readers made clear their strong views on the matter overnight.

Created under the 1999 International Religious Freedom Act (IDFA), the USCIRF is tasked with making recommendations to the executive and legislative branches about promoting religious freedom abroad.

Its commissioner are unpaid private sector figures, and are appointed in line with a set-down formula – two by the president, two by congressional leaders of the president’s party, and four by congressional leaders of the party not in the White House.

When George was first appointed in March 2012 – by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) – the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy group protested.

“For the Speaker to appoint someone who embodies NOM’s deep seated anti-gay animus is the wrong thing to do,” Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese said at the time. “This appointment is counter to the commission’s stated mission because George represents a narrow and exclusionary ideology.”

George, who has served on the President’s Council on Bioethics and as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, will succeed as chairman Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the Lantos Foundation (named for her father, the late Rep. Tom Lantos), and a teacher of human rights and foreign policy at Tufts University.

Swett, who was appointed to the USCIRF by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and has chaired the commission for the past year, will now serve as one of two vice-chairs.

The other incoming vice-chair is M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the “anti-Islamist” non-profit American Islamic Forum for Democracy, and an appointee of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Swett praised George as “a true human rights champion whose compassion for victims of oppression and wisdom about international religious freedom shine through all we have accomplished this past year.”

A key function of the USCIRF is to make recommendations to the administration about designating “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) for egregious violations of religious freedom. Under the IRFA, such countries may face sanctions or other measures designed to encourage improvements.

Currently designated CPCs are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.

The USCIRF supports those designations but has also been prodding the State Department, without success, to add Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam to the list.

SOURCE





Poll: 67 Percent of Americans Do Not Believe Race Should Play Any Part  Whatsoever in College Admissions

Gallup’s most recent finding shows that more than two-thirds of Americans believe students applying to college should be evaluated “solely on merit” -- and that skin color should be wholly irrelevant during the admissions process (via Nick Gillespie):



I’m inclined to stand with the majority on this question. Of course this is not to belittle or ignore the nation’s long and complicated history of American race relations. For example, who among us can forget the famous photograph of Alabama Governor George Wallace standing defiantly at the University of Alabama’s auditorium in 1963 in order to prevent two black students, James Hood and Vivian Malone Jones, from registering for classes solely because of the color of their skin?

Institutionalized racism existed in this country -- in one form or another -- for more than a century after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed into law, and admittedly, exists to a certain extent in latent form today. At the same time, it’s my personal opinion that affirmative action and other such laws were once necessary -- namely, around the time the great Civil Rights statutes of the 1960s were signed into law. But remember, the reason the Supreme Court tossed out Section Four of the 1965 Voting Rights Act as recently as last month was because, in Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion, “our country has changed.” In other words, antiquated laws crafted with the best of intentions fifty years ago -- in order to protect blacks against discrimination and exploitation -- are no longer necessary in twenty-first century America. Isn't this a good thing?

By the way, a question worth asking is do affirmative action laws actually help minority students succeed? Perhaps. But there’s also a preponderance of evidence suggesting otherwise. Here’s Dr. Thomas Sowell writing on the subject, a brilliant and accomplished academic who spent many years of his professional life studying these kinds of issues:

    "My view of affirmative action in college admissions is that it mismatches black students with colleges whose standards they do not meet, leading to unnecessary failures, when these students are perfectly qualified to go to some other colleges where they are more likely to succeed and graduate."

Martin Luther King, Jr. famously remarked that he wanted to live in a nation where his children would not be judged “by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Racial quotas on college campuses therefore seem to be anathema to Dr. King’s vision of a more meritocratic and egalitarian society. Still, there will always be those who believe affirmative action is sacrosanct, and anyone wanting to change these entrenched laws or shake up the status quo are motivated only by racism. But isn’t it telling that nearly 70 percent of Americans already want students evaluated “solely on merit” when they apply to U.S. colleges and universities? This seems to me a huge step forward -- even if most liberals wouldn't agree.

SOURCE





House Refuses to Fund ‘Atheist Chaplains’ at Defense Department

 House members voted Tuesday to bar the use of federal funds to hire “atheist chaplains” at the Department of Defense after Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) reminded his colleagues that the concept didn’t make any sense.

“It’s just total nonsense, the idea of having a chaplain who is an atheist,” Fleming told fellow House members. “When it comes to the idea of an atheist chaplain, which is an oxymoron – it’s self-contradictory – what you’re really doing is now saying that we’re going to replace the true chaplains with non-chaplain chaplains.”

Speaking about the current DOD rules for chaplains on the House floor, Fleming said: “Chaplains must possess appropriate education credentials, two years of religious leadership experience, and more importantly, must receive an endorsement from a qualified religious organization attesting to the tenants of the endorser’s faith…In June this body twice affirmed that the military is not permitted to appoint atheist chaplains.”

The House voted Tuesday to approve Fleming’s amendment to the 2014 DOD Appropriations Act  (See H.R. 2397.pdf) which he said was an effort to “…define what a chaplain is. A chaplain is a minister of the faith -- someone who believes in a deity of a spiritual life who is assigned to a secular organization.”

The amendment passed with 227 Republicans and 26 Democrats voting in favor of passage.

Fleming introduced the amendment in response to an earlier proposal by Rep. Rob Andrews (D–NJ) that stated: “The Secretary of Defense shall provide for the appointment, as officers in the Chaplain Corps of the Armed Forces, of persons who are certified or ordained by non-theistic organizations and institutions, such as humanist, ethical culturalist, or atheist.”

“Basically, the standard is to be recognized as a church by the Internal Revenue Service,” Jason Torpy, president of the Military Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers explained.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

A local Jewish student was denied entry into the United Kingdom late last month. After being detained for more than nine hours, he was put back on a plane to the United States by customs officials. During that time he was never told why he was being denied entry. He was told his photo and fingerprints have now been placed in a database that will make it difficult for him to obtain entry into the U.K. or any other E.U. country.

The U.K. man who had offered Louis “Chip” Cantor summer work experience and is not Jewish, Kevin Shilling, said the U.K. Border Agency agent he spoke to in his attempt to get Cantor admitted into the country made more than one anti-Semitic comment to him during the telephone conversation they had.

Chip Cantor told his story to two local television stations last week. On Tuesday, June 4, the 23-year-old student told KMBC he was traveling to the U.K. to visit and gain summer work experience and to participate in a fundraiser for a child who has cancer. He left Kansas City on Wednesday, May 29, on an early-morning flight and waited in line to go through customs after landing in the country after 10 p.m. London time. When he got to the front of the line, a female customs agent began looking at his passport and treated him courteously. The routine exercise ended when she noticed the two pages in his passport with Israeli visas.

“I spent my freshman year studying abroad in Israel,” he said.

Cantor is no longer speaking publicly about the incident.

“I am feeling ‘publicized out’ at the moment,” he commented via email.

In the same email, Chip wrote that he never really wanted to tell his story publicly.

“My only real goal with this fiasco is to get my fingerprints and picture removed from their database and the blacked out stamp in my passport removed as well,” he said.

Cantor said he understands people with Israel visas are frequently denied entry into countries all over the world.

“Usually with very little explanation as to why they are being denied entry. It is sad, but it is the reality we are living in. This will, of course, never change my love for Israel, it will only make it grow stronger,” he said.

The Cantor family has contacted the office of Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts for assistance in getting Chip Cantor’s name cleared.

The customs nightmare

Chip’s father Chuck Cantor said his son told him the female customs agent — who for some reason was not dressed in a customs uniform — was very pleasant toward him until she saw the Israel stamps in his passport. Then she simply walked away with his passport without speaking a word to him. Chip told his father he estimates she was gone 45 minutes to an hour. He never saw her again.

“He has a lot of Israel stamps,” Chuck said. Chip has been to Israel several times including two programs sponsored by Young Judaea — the six-week Machon program and a gap-year program. Chip Cantor graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School in 2009 and will be a senior in the fall at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Finally, according to Chuck, a different, uniformed customs agent came to see him. Chip was told they were taking his bags and detaining him for questioning. He was not told why.

Once in the interview room Chip told his father that he was told if he changed any of his answers to any questions, he was going to go to prison.

“He said, ‘Why would I change my answers? I told you the truth,’ ” Chuck said.

Chip wasn’t allowed to be in sight of his luggage and eventually was put into what he described to his father as a detention cell.

“At some point a woman who was wearing a burka came to the cell to photograph him,” Chuck said. At that point he was fingerprinted as well.

As she’s doing this, she said to him, “We’re putting your name and fingerprints and photos into a database. From now on it is going to be very difficult for you to ever travel in the United Kingdom or anywhere in the E.U. It will be up to each individual country to decide if they want to admit you,” Chuck said his son was told.

Chuck said Chip kept telling the customs agents he had not committed any crimes or done anything wrong. Eventually another agent came to tell Chip he was being deported. Now several hours after he was detained, Chip was given the opportunity to call his father.

Chuck said he advised his son to ask to speak to someone from the American consulate or the U.S. embassy. Those requests were denied.

At this point, Chuck asked to speak directly to the customs agent and was connected with Philip G. Yeomans.

“I was trying to get my son into that country. I was very calm. I called him sir, I was very respectful,” said Chuck, who continued to explain that he was sure his son had the appropriate paperwork to enter the country.

After Chuck spoke to Yeomans, he contacted Shilling in the U.K. for assistance. It was about 3 a.m. U.K. time. Shilling called Yeomans.

Shilling noted the conversation didn’t accomplish anything. Several times, however, Yeomans made anti-Semitic comments to Shilling. At one point, when Shilling was explaining the reason Chip was in the country, the customs agent told Shilling that Chip should have lied to the customs agent, adding, “A Jewish kid would find that easy,” Shilling reported.

Yeomans the custom agent also told Shilling any additional attempts to aid Cantor would be useless and “the little Jew will be on his way back to his rich daddy,” in a matter of hours.

Chuck Cantor said during the time Chip was in detention, he was given only a half of a sandwich and very little water. When Chip asked for more food and water over several hours, he was alternately denied, told to “stop pestering” them, and told he could have water “only if you say please.”

In the morning, Chip was escorted to the plane by another customs agent for a flight back to the United States. At this time Chip asked the agent for his passport and was refused.

“The guy walks him onto the plane and in front of everyone, like a prisoner, he says here is this man’s passport. Do not give him his passport until you land in the United States,” Chuck said he was told. The American Airlines purser told Chip that, in 17 years flying internationally, he had never seen anything like it.

Less than 36 hours after leaving Kansas City, Chip was back in town.

Shilling, Chip’s would-be employer in the U.K., is helping the Cantors try to clear the young man’s name there. When contacted by The Chronicle Shilling said, “I’m really so sorry for Chip and the way he was treated. I want to reassure all your readers that if they plan a visit to the U.K., once they get past the U.K. Border Agency they will find friendly, welcoming people, without prejudice.”

SOURCE





It cost one brave JP her job - but  ALL Britons are victims of the Great Cannabis Con

The Government and the courts are lying to you. Officially, cannabis is against the law. In practical fact, this is largely false.

This country is running a covert experiment in marijuana legalisation, which makes Amsterdam look puritan and severe.

But officially the law stays on the books. This allows Ministers to make grandiose claims that they are still fighting to protect your children from drugs, when in truth they have surrendered to the cannabis culture.

It also allows the Government to claim it is honouring the treaties that oblige us to ban marijuana. This fake law is one of the biggest lies in modern politics, so big that it is almost impossible to expose it. I have many times tried, though my recent detailed and carefully researched book on the subject was ignored or crudely smeared in most of the media.

But perhaps this will persuade you. This week a Manchester magistrate, Yvonne Davies, was forced from her job because she pleaded with a convicted cannabis grower, Christopher Duncan, to mend his ways. She did so because her own brother, Glen Harding, died tragically after becoming a habitual cannabis user.

Mrs Davies had no doubt that her brother’s disastrous descent was the result of this extremely dangerous and potent drug – crazily viewed as ‘soft’ by our culture. Just as in the years when science first began to link cigarettes with lung cancer, direct causal evidence is lacking. But the correlation is so strong that no responsible person can ignore it.

So there was Mrs Davies, enforcing the law as it is written down, trying to do a bit of good by sharing her own grief. And what happened?

Peter Reynolds, leader of a campaign to weaken the cannabis laws, lodged a complaint. I know Mr Reynolds. He is a charming, plausible and determined pest. I sometimes get the impression he thinks he is cannabis in person, so sensitive is he to criticisms of it.

Actually, he is not a very good advocate for his greasy and dangerous cause, and is easily countered by facts and logic. I and my friend David Raynes (a former Customs officer who knows about drugs) have beaten him in debate, and before an audience of students, too.

He has also complained (unsuccessfully so far) against me to the Press Complaints Commission.

Yet his attack on Mrs Davies succeeded. The allegedly tough and allegedly Conservative ‘Minister of Justice’, Chris Grayling, and the Lord Chief Injustice, the overpraised Lord Judge, agreed she should be reprimanded, a serious sanction. They said: ‘The views expressed in court were inappropriate. The Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice agreed and concluded that her combined actions fell below the standard of behaviour expected of a magistrate.’

The complaint from Mr Reynolds was supported by several retired magistrates, who ought to be profoundly ashamed of their behaviour.

Mrs Davies said it was ‘astounding that the views of a pro-cannabis campaigner were used to build a case against me. As far as I am aware, cannabis is still very much illegal in Britain.’

But it isn’t really. Like so many kind, dutiful, respectable people, she still has no idea of the depth and fury of the revolution which is still scouring its way through all our institutions.

One of its most vindictive and hateful aspects is its worship of human selfishness. And one of the main symbols of this new and ugly faith is the stinking weed called cannabis. Its cult is summed up in the words so often spat out by sulky adolescents of all ages: ‘I can do what I want with my own body. It’s none of your business!’

As Mrs Davies knows very well from her own bitter experience, it is our business, as a society and as individuals. The grief caused by her brother’s sad suicide in a canal, the grief caused to parents, children, brothers and sisters when family members go permanently mad after using cannabis, is real.

Many people write to tell me of such things. And a wise society would praise Mrs Davies for trying to hold the line against this evil, to help the young resist the tremendous peer pressure to risk their sanity by drug-taking.

But we are not a wise society, and those who sit in the seats of power are not fit to be trusted with that power. Now you have seen how they acted in this case, and which side they took in this quarrel, will you at last believe me?

SOURCE





A Jamaican contribution to diversity in Britain



A man who raped a pensioner in her bedroom 16 years ago has been jailed for life following a retrial under the double jeopardy law.

Wendell Baker, 56, had previously walked free from court when he went on trial in 1999 for attacking 66-year-old Hazel Backwell because a judge ruled out DNA evidence.

But he went on trial again this year after a DNA match was found 'in the order of one in a billion'.

Baker, who was unanimously found guilty by jurors after deliberating for just over an hour on Tuesday, refused to come out of the cells to attend his sentencing at the Old Bailey.

Judge Peter Rook said he would serve a minimum of 10 years and six months before being considered for parole.

Ms Backwell, who died in 2002, suffered a 'terrifying ordeal' when Baker broke into her home in Stratford, east London, as she slept in January 1997.

He tied her hands behind her back with flex, beat and raped her, then ransacked her house before leaving her bound and trapped in a cupboard.

Ms Backwell was found by chance by neighbour George Walpole the next evening, 'terrified' and thinking she was going to die.

The attack left her too afraid to continue living alone or go out by herself and she 'died with a very sad and broken heart', her family said.

Judge Rook said: 'It must be the case that but for the fact that it was a Thursday and Mr Walpole passed by, she was likely to have died as a result.

'It seems to me it’s difficult to find a case of more serious rape during the course of a burglary, short of where the victim is either killed or caused very serious harm.'

The judge said Ms Backwell 'went through hours of torment thinking she had been left to die'.  He went on: 'This was a particularly grave case of the rape of a woman in her own bedroom, you having broken into her home at night. Up until then she had always felt safe and secure in her home.

'This was a planned offence to steal money. When you could not find any, you decided to punish her with a brutal and vicious attack and by raping her.'

He added that Ms Backwell was beaten 'black and blue' by Baker. 'Her face was unrecognisable even to her own son who only recognised her by her voice.'

Baker was arrested in October 1998 on suspicion of rape and provided a DNA sample which matched the DNA profile of swabs taken from Ms Backwell.  He had previously provided a DNA sample in January 1998 which also matched samples taken from Ms Backwell.

But he walked free from court after the judge decided the case could not proceed following legal argument at the start of the original trial in 1999.

A change in the law in 2005 allowed a person cleared of a serious offence to face retrial in certain circumstances, but when the case was reviewed in 2007, it was found that much of the evidence had been lost or destroyed.

The case was then reopened in 2009 and Baker, from Walthamstow, north east London, but of no fixed address, was arrested in 2011.

He gave further DNA samples matching that found on swabs taken from Ms Backwell with a probability 'in the order of one in a billion', the court heard.

Jamaican-born Baker denied raping Ms Backwell, telling the court he had been framed by police, whom he claimed had hounded him for years.  The court heard he has been in and out of prison since the 1970s for a range of offences including burglary, theft and actual bodily harm.

Today her son David Backwell was in court to see his mother's attacker sentenced.

A statement on behalf of Ms Backwell’s family was released by the Metropolitan Police, which said the 'violent and depraved attack' had ruined her life and she died with a broken heart.

It said: 'My mother was a brave and strong woman. She survived the attack and was able to give a detailed account of what Wendell Baker put her through but her life was never the same again.  'She found it difficult to remain in her much-loved home and she moved into a warden-assisted flat and this began her demise.

'My mother sadly passed away lonely, with a broken heart and a shadow of her former self, and was never able to see the man who caused her so much pain jailed for what he did.

'My mother felt as if she had been raped a second time when Wendell Baker was first acquitted. She could not understand what had happened and was left devastated. Baker was a free man and was allowed to continue with his life as if nothing had ever happened.

'Today Baker is no longer able to walk the street a free man and will have to face the stark reality of his actions. Justice has definitely been served today.'

The statement said Ms Backwell’s family had been 'sad and upset' when they were told that much of the evidence had been lost.  It added: 'We worried about what this meant for my mother’s case but today’s outcome is what is important. What happened is now in the past and today is about my mother.

'My mother suffered and it saddens me that she is not here to witness this momentous day. Instead I stand here on her behalf. Today is a good day for our family but it will always be tinged with sadness.'

Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Burgess said: 'This has been an extremely complex and difficult case to bring before the court and we welcome the (lengthy) sentence that has been handed down today.

'Wendell Baker mistakenly believed that he had got away with this horrific crime back in 1997 but the Special Casework Investigations Team has worked tirelessly to ensure that he will now spend a considerable amount of time in jail for the crime he has committed.

'The sentence handed down today reflects the awful nature of the offence and I am pleased that David Backwell - Hazel’s son - has been given the opportunity to represent his mother today and to see justice being served.'

SOURCE






Australia:  The contemptuous political class

The political class has contemptuous attitude towards the Australian public. And I am not talking about our new Prime Minister. The case in point is the upcoming referendum on whether to recognise local government, which in reality expands the powers of the Commonwealth.

The referendum seeks to amend section 96 of the Australian constitution to read: ‘Parliament may grant financial assistance to any State, or to any local government body formed by a law of a State, on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit.’

If the referendum is successful, not only will the Commonwealth have expanded powers into areas that have traditionally been the responsibility of the states, but it will duplicate state bureaucracies at a federal level.

The expansion of government power is coupled with a $32 million public information campaign that treats the public with utter contempt.

The contempt arises from the fact that $31.6 million of taxpayer funding is for the ‘Yes’ campaign, while only $0.5 million is for the ‘No’ campaign.  If the case for reform were strong enough, such asymmetrical financial support would not be necessary.  By way of comparison, for the republic referendum, the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns each received $7.5 million.

The political class is spending your money to convince you that they should be more powerful.

Despite the excessive spending on a public information campaign, there is evidence that government ministers don’t even understand the logic behind the efforts to expand Commonwealth powers.

With overwhelming electoral and financial support for the referendum from the political class (with several exceptions), it is important for individuals, communities and civil society at large to organise themselves against the further encroachment of government into their lives.

If you want to get involved in the ‘Yes’ campaign, you can read more on the Australian Local Government Association’s campaign website,  and if you want to get involved with the ‘No’ campaign, visit the Vote No To Canberra’s Power Grab website.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

The antisemitic British establishment again

A local Jewish student was denied entry into the United Kingdom late last month. After being detained for more than nine hours, he was put back on a plane to the United States by customs officials. During that time he was never told why he was being denied entry. He was told his photo and fingerprints have now been placed in a database that will make it difficult for him to obtain entry into the U.K. or any other E.U. country.

The U.K. man who had offered Louis “Chip” Cantor summer work experience and is not Jewish, Kevin Shilling, said the U.K. Border Agency agent he spoke to in his attempt to get Cantor admitted into the country made more than one anti-Semitic comment to him during the telephone conversation they had.

Chip Cantor told his story to two local television stations last week. On Tuesday, June 4, the 23-year-old student told KMBC he was traveling to the U.K. to visit and gain summer work experience and to participate in a fundraiser for a child who has cancer. He left Kansas City on Wednesday, May 29, on an early-morning flight and waited in line to go through customs after landing in the country after 10 p.m. London time. When he got to the front of the line, a female customs agent began looking at his passport and treated him courteously. The routine exercise ended when she noticed the two pages in his passport with Israeli visas.

“I spent my freshman year studying abroad in Israel,” he said.

Cantor is no longer speaking publicly about the incident.

“I am feeling ‘publicized out’ at the moment,” he commented via email.

In the same email, Chip wrote that he never really wanted to tell his story publicly.

“My only real goal with this fiasco is to get my fingerprints and picture removed from their database and the blacked out stamp in my passport removed as well,” he said.

Cantor said he understands people with Israel visas are frequently denied entry into countries all over the world.

“Usually with very little explanation as to why they are being denied entry. It is sad, but it is the reality we are living in. This will, of course, never change my love for Israel, it will only make it grow stronger,” he said.

The Cantor family has contacted the office of Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts for assistance in getting Chip Cantor’s name cleared.

The customs nightmare

Chip’s father Chuck Cantor said his son told him the female customs agent — who for some reason was not dressed in a customs uniform — was very pleasant toward him until she saw the Israel stamps in his passport. Then she simply walked away with his passport without speaking a word to him. Chip told his father he estimates she was gone 45 minutes to an hour. He never saw her again.

“He has a lot of Israel stamps,” Chuck said. Chip has been to Israel several times including two programs sponsored by Young Judaea — the six-week Machon program and a gap-year program. Chip Cantor graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School in 2009 and will be a senior in the fall at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Finally, according to Chuck, a different, uniformed customs agent came to see him. Chip was told they were taking his bags and detaining him for questioning. He was not told why.

Once in the interview room Chip told his father that he was told if he changed any of his answers to any questions, he was going to go to prison.

“He said, ‘Why would I change my answers? I told you the truth,’ ” Chuck said.

Chip wasn’t allowed to be in sight of his luggage and eventually was put into what he described to his father as a detention cell.

“At some point a woman who was wearing a burka came to the cell to photograph him,” Chuck said. At that point he was fingerprinted as well.

As she’s doing this, she said to him, “We’re putting your name and fingerprints and photos into a database. From now on it is going to be very difficult for you to ever travel in the United Kingdom or anywhere in the E.U. It will be up to each individual country to decide if they want to admit you,” Chuck said his son was told.

Chuck said Chip kept telling the customs agents he had not committed any crimes or done anything wrong. Eventually another agent came to tell Chip he was being deported. Now several hours after he was detained, Chip was given the opportunity to call his father.

Chuck said he advised his son to ask to speak to someone from the American consulate or the U.S. embassy. Those requests were denied.

At this point, Chuck asked to speak directly to the customs agent and was connected with Philip G. Yeomans.

“I was trying to get my son into that country. I was very calm. I called him sir, I was very respectful,” said Chuck, who continued to explain that he was sure his son had the appropriate paperwork to enter the country.

After Chuck spoke to Yeomans, he contacted Shilling in the U.K. for assistance. It was about 3 a.m. U.K. time. Shilling called Yeomans.

Shilling noted the conversation didn’t accomplish anything. Several times, however, Yeomans made anti-Semitic comments to Shilling. At one point, when Shilling was explaining the reason Chip was in the country, the customs agent told Shilling that Chip should have lied to the customs agent, adding, “A Jewish kid would find that easy,” Shilling reported.

Yeomans the custom agent also told Shilling any additional attempts to aid Cantor would be useless and “the little Jew will be on his way back to his rich daddy,” in a matter of hours.

Chuck Cantor said during the time Chip was in detention, he was given only a half of a sandwich and very little water. When Chip asked for more food and water over several hours, he was alternately denied, told to “stop pestering” them, and told he could have water “only if you say please.”

In the morning, Chip was escorted to the plane by another customs agent for a flight back to the United States. At this time Chip asked the agent for his passport and was refused.

“The guy walks him onto the plane and in front of everyone, like a prisoner, he says here is this man’s passport. Do not give him his passport until you land in the United States,” Chuck said he was told. The American Airlines purser told Chip that, in 17 years flying internationally, he had never seen anything like it.

Less than 36 hours after leaving Kansas City, Chip was back in town.

Shilling, Chip’s would-be employer in the U.K., is helping the Cantors try to clear the young man’s name there. When contacted by The Chronicle Shilling said, “I’m really so sorry for Chip and the way he was treated. I want to reassure all your readers that if they plan a visit to the U.K., once they get past the U.K. Border Agency they will find friendly, welcoming people, without prejudice.”

SOURCE





It cost one brave JP her job - but  ALL Britons are victims of the Great Cannabis Con

The Government and the courts are lying to you. Officially, cannabis is against the law. In practical fact, this is largely false.

This country is running a covert experiment in marijuana legalisation, which makes Amsterdam look puritan and severe.

But officially the law stays on the books. This allows Ministers to make grandiose claims that they are still fighting to protect your children from drugs, when in truth they have surrendered to the cannabis culture.

It also allows the Government to claim it is honouring the treaties that oblige us to ban marijuana. This fake law is one of the biggest lies in modern politics, so big that it is almost impossible to expose it. I have many times tried, though my recent detailed and carefully researched book on the subject was ignored or crudely smeared in most of the media.

But perhaps this will persuade you. This week a Manchester magistrate, Yvonne Davies, was forced from her job because she pleaded with a convicted cannabis grower, Christopher Duncan, to mend his ways. She did so because her own brother, Glen Harding, died tragically after becoming a habitual cannabis user.

Mrs Davies had no doubt that her brother’s disastrous descent was the result of this extremely dangerous and potent drug – crazily viewed as ‘soft’ by our culture. Just as in the years when science first began to link cigarettes with lung cancer, direct causal evidence is lacking. But the correlation is so strong that no responsible person can ignore it.

So there was Mrs Davies, enforcing the law as it is written down, trying to do a bit of good by sharing her own grief. And what happened?

Peter Reynolds, leader of a campaign to weaken the cannabis laws, lodged a complaint. I know Mr Reynolds. He is a charming, plausible and determined pest. I sometimes get the impression he thinks he is cannabis in person, so sensitive is he to criticisms of it.

Actually, he is not a very good advocate for his greasy and dangerous cause, and is easily countered by facts and logic. I and my friend David Raynes (a former Customs officer who knows about drugs) have beaten him in debate, and before an audience of students, too.

He has also complained (unsuccessfully so far) against me to the Press Complaints Commission.

Yet his attack on Mrs Davies succeeded. The allegedly tough and allegedly Conservative ‘Minister of Justice’, Chris Grayling, and the Lord Chief Injustice, the overpraised Lord Judge, agreed she should be reprimanded, a serious sanction. They said: ‘The views expressed in court were inappropriate. The Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice agreed and concluded that her combined actions fell below the standard of behaviour expected of a magistrate.’

The complaint from Mr Reynolds was supported by several retired magistrates, who ought to be profoundly ashamed of their behaviour.

Mrs Davies said it was ‘astounding that the views of a pro-cannabis campaigner were used to build a case against me. As far as I am aware, cannabis is still very much illegal in Britain.’

But it isn’t really. Like so many kind, dutiful, respectable people, she still has no idea of the depth and fury of the revolution which is still scouring its way through all our institutions.

One of its most vindictive and hateful aspects is its worship of human selfishness. And one of the main symbols of this new and ugly faith is the stinking weed called cannabis. Its cult is summed up in the words so often spat out by sulky adolescents of all ages: ‘I can do what I want with my own body. It’s none of your business!’

As Mrs Davies knows very well from her own bitter experience, it is our business, as a society and as individuals. The grief caused by her brother’s sad suicide in a canal, the grief caused to parents, children, brothers and sisters when family members go permanently mad after using cannabis, is real.

Many people write to tell me of such things. And a wise society would praise Mrs Davies for trying to hold the line against this evil, to help the young resist the tremendous peer pressure to risk their sanity by drug-taking.

But we are not a wise society, and those who sit in the seats of power are not fit to be trusted with that power. Now you have seen how they acted in this case, and which side they took in this quarrel, will you at last believe me?

SOURCE





A Jamaican contribution to diversity in Britain



A man who raped a pensioner in her bedroom 16 years ago has been jailed for life following a retrial under the double jeopardy law.

Wendell Baker, 56, had previously walked free from court when he went on trial in 1999 for attacking 66-year-old Hazel Backwell because a judge ruled out DNA evidence.

But he went on trial again this year after a DNA match was found 'in the order of one in a billion'.

Baker, who was unanimously found guilty by jurors after deliberating for just over an hour on Tuesday, refused to come out of the cells to attend his sentencing at the Old Bailey.

Judge Peter Rook said he would serve a minimum of 10 years and six months before being considered for parole.

Ms Backwell, who died in 2002, suffered a 'terrifying ordeal' when Baker broke into her home in Stratford, east London, as she slept in January 1997.

He tied her hands behind her back with flex, beat and raped her, then ransacked her house before leaving her bound and trapped in a cupboard.

Ms Backwell was found by chance by neighbour George Walpole the next evening, 'terrified' and thinking she was going to die.

The attack left her too afraid to continue living alone or go out by herself and she 'died with a very sad and broken heart', her family said.

Judge Rook said: 'It must be the case that but for the fact that it was a Thursday and Mr Walpole passed by, she was likely to have died as a result.

'It seems to me it’s difficult to find a case of more serious rape during the course of a burglary, short of where the victim is either killed or caused very serious harm.'

The judge said Ms Backwell 'went through hours of torment thinking she had been left to die'.  He went on: 'This was a particularly grave case of the rape of a woman in her own bedroom, you having broken into her home at night. Up until then she had always felt safe and secure in her home.

'This was a planned offence to steal money. When you could not find any, you decided to punish her with a brutal and vicious attack and by raping her.'

He added that Ms Backwell was beaten 'black and blue' by Baker. 'Her face was unrecognisable even to her own son who only recognised her by her voice.'

Baker was arrested in October 1998 on suspicion of rape and provided a DNA sample which matched the DNA profile of swabs taken from Ms Backwell.  He had previously provided a DNA sample in January 1998 which also matched samples taken from Ms Backwell.

But he walked free from court after the judge decided the case could not proceed following legal argument at the start of the original trial in 1999.

A change in the law in 2005 allowed a person cleared of a serious offence to face retrial in certain circumstances, but when the case was reviewed in 2007, it was found that much of the evidence had been lost or destroyed.

The case was then reopened in 2009 and Baker, from Walthamstow, north east London, but of no fixed address, was arrested in 2011.

He gave further DNA samples matching that found on swabs taken from Ms Backwell with a probability 'in the order of one in a billion', the court heard.

Jamaican-born Baker denied raping Ms Backwell, telling the court he had been framed by police, whom he claimed had hounded him for years.  The court heard he has been in and out of prison since the 1970s for a range of offences including burglary, theft and actual bodily harm.

Today her son David Backwell was in court to see his mother's attacker sentenced.

A statement on behalf of Ms Backwell’s family was released by the Metropolitan Police, which said the 'violent and depraved attack' had ruined her life and she died with a broken heart.

It said: 'My mother was a brave and strong woman. She survived the attack and was able to give a detailed account of what Wendell Baker put her through but her life was never the same again.  'She found it difficult to remain in her much-loved home and she moved into a warden-assisted flat and this began her demise.

'My mother sadly passed away lonely, with a broken heart and a shadow of her former self, and was never able to see the man who caused her so much pain jailed for what he did.

'My mother felt as if she had been raped a second time when Wendell Baker was first acquitted. She could not understand what had happened and was left devastated. Baker was a free man and was allowed to continue with his life as if nothing had ever happened.

'Today Baker is no longer able to walk the street a free man and will have to face the stark reality of his actions. Justice has definitely been served today.'

The statement said Ms Backwell’s family had been 'sad and upset' when they were told that much of the evidence had been lost.  It added: 'We worried about what this meant for my mother’s case but today’s outcome is what is important. What happened is now in the past and today is about my mother.

'My mother suffered and it saddens me that she is not here to witness this momentous day. Instead I stand here on her behalf. Today is a good day for our family but it will always be tinged with sadness.'

Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Burgess said: 'This has been an extremely complex and difficult case to bring before the court and we welcome the (lengthy) sentence that has been handed down today.

'Wendell Baker mistakenly believed that he had got away with this horrific crime back in 1997 but the Special Casework Investigations Team has worked tirelessly to ensure that he will now spend a considerable amount of time in jail for the crime he has committed.

'The sentence handed down today reflects the awful nature of the offence and I am pleased that David Backwell - Hazel’s son - has been given the opportunity to represent his mother today and to see justice being served.'

SOURCE






Australia:  The contemptuous political class

The political class has contemptuous attitude towards the Australian public. And I am not talking about our new Prime Minister. The case in point is the upcoming referendum on whether to recognise local government, which in reality expands the powers of the Commonwealth.

The referendum seeks to amend section 96 of the Australian constitution to read: ‘Parliament may grant financial assistance to any State, or to any local government body formed by a law of a State, on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit.’

If the referendum is successful, not only will the Commonwealth have expanded powers into areas that have traditionally been the responsibility of the states, but it will duplicate state bureaucracies at a federal level.

The expansion of government power is coupled with a $32 million public information campaign that treats the public with utter contempt.

The contempt arises from the fact that $31.6 million of taxpayer funding is for the ‘Yes’ campaign, while only $0.5 million is for the ‘No’ campaign.  If the case for reform were strong enough, such asymmetrical financial support would not be necessary.  By way of comparison, for the republic referendum, the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns each received $7.5 million.

The political class is spending your money to convince you that they should be more powerful.

Despite the excessive spending on a public information campaign, there is evidence that government ministers don’t even understand the logic behind the efforts to expand Commonwealth powers.

With overwhelming electoral and financial support for the referendum from the political class (with several exceptions), it is important for individuals, communities and civil society at large to organise themselves against the further encroachment of government into their lives.

If you want to get involved in the ‘Yes’ campaign, you can read more on the Australian Local Government Association’s campaign website,  and if you want to get involved with the ‘No’ campaign, visit the Vote No To Canberra’s Power Grab website.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

In the circumstances it is slightly surprising that the couple  did not wed in a church.  I did last time around and insisted on the full 1662 "Book of Common Prayer" service -- JR

But as Gary and Louise Lidington, from London, made final preparations for their wedding last weekend, they received an urgent telephone call from council registrars warning that they could not legally say the words “in sickness and in health”.

Officials in Tower Hamlets, east London, said that the phrase, which is used around the world, was too “religious” for a civil ceremony.

The couple, were forced to rewrite their vows, which they chose because of their traditional ring, just hours before the wedding, which took place on Saturday.

The phrase “to have and to hold” was also deemed too Christian, because of its echoes of the marriage service in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

But, after discussion, the council ruled that to it would be acceptable to say “to hold and to have”.

And they were allowed to replace “in sickness and in health” with “in sickness and when we are well”.

The couple said they had no choice but to agree to the change of wording or face having to call off their wedding.

But they were so baffled by the change that Mr Lidington, a barrister, stumbled over his lines as he said the new vows, while his wife, a public relations executive, was overcome by a fit of giggles.

The debacle shines the spotlight on confusion over the law on civil weddings in which religious elements such as hymns or Bible readings have been officially forbidden since 1837.

But the rules were relaxed eight years ago, as part of a wider overhaul of the civil weddings system, allowing couples to choose secular songs with religious references such as Aretha Franklin's “Say A Little Prayer” or Robbie Williams's “Angels”.

Wedding websites and books list a range of sample vows suitable for civil ceremonies including several which feature the traditional phrases chosen by Mr and Mrs Lidington.

The council apologised for the confusion but said they were concerned the vows did not comply with “with the relevant legality process”.

Arrangements for the wedding, held in Wilton’s Music Hall, in the east end, the oldest surviving Victorian theatre of its type, had been agreed for months.

Formalities such as the vows, had also apparently been approved at a meeting with registrars in February.

But on Friday afternoon Mrs Lidington, 39, received an urgent message on her mobile phone warning that there were legal problems.

“It was the registrar to say that she would not be able to marry us with these words and could I rewrite them over the phone,” she said.

Mrs Lidington explained they had chosen the vows from a website specifically because they were traditional without being overtly religious.  “I was horrified by it because they are so important,” she said.

“They have just stood the test of time, they sound like poetry, they flow beautifully and they are just the form of words that you expect at a wedding.  “Ever since I was 11 I just imagined that they would be the words I would use when I married my husband.

“It just seems ridiculous that words which don’t mention religion could be so problematic.”

But she added: “I just thought: 'I can’t be rude, I can’t be offensive because I have got stand in front of her tomorrow and pledge my life to my husband'.”

In the end the couple laughed off the legal difficulties and Mr Lidington, 43, surprised his wife during the speeches by asking her to join him by reciting the vows they had originally intended.

“Taking his lead, during my speech I said the words that we had originally chosen to him,” explained Mrs Lidington.  “It was incredibly romantic, and got a standing ovation from our guests.”

Kate Thompson of the popular weddings website confetti.co.uk – which includes almost identical vows among its list of suggestions - said: “I’ve never come across anything like this before – it does sound ridiculous to me and I do feel sorry for the bride and groom that this happened at the 11th hour.”

A spokeswoman for the council said: “We apologise for the short notice that Mr and Mrs Lidington received regarding changes to their chosen vows.

“It was important that their civil ceremony complied with the relevant legality process, and we worked closely with the couple to ensure that the vows they exchanged on their special day were as close as possible to those initially chosen by them.”

The council later pointed to a handbook for registrars which recommended avoiding phrases from the Prayer Book.

SOURCE






Trivialities that distract from bad policy

James Delingpole

A few weeks ago I drove to Market Harborough for my test as a potential Ukip candidate. The process was very thorough. There was a media interview section, where one of my examiners did a bravura impersonation of a tricksy local radio presenter (he even did the traffic bulletin beforehand). Then came a test on the manifesto. Finally, there was the bit where I nearly came unstuck: the speeches.

My problem was that the stern lady interviewing me had seen me speak before. It was at one of Nigel Farage’s boozy fundraisers at the East India Club. Coming out as a Ukip member, I had vouchsafed to the audience, had been as thrilling as finally admitting you’re gay and realising you now have the pick of London’s finest fisting clubs.

The analogy — it just came splurging out: do such specialist venues even exist? — seemed to go down well with the lairier half of the room. But not the more sedate half. ‘It’s just as well my husband doesn’t know what fisting is!’ my examiner rebuked me. The impression I got — though we parted on excellent terms — was that she wasn’t 100 per cent sure I was the kind of person she’d like to be representing her party in Westminster or Brussels.

It’s a reasonable concern, I think. Polished, smoothy-chops, Shakespeare–quoting Dan Hannan I ain’t. Nor am I as clever or fluent or subtle as Michael Gove; nor as capable and diligent as Owen Paterson (who holds the parliamentary record for most questions tabled on a single subject: over 600 on badgers); nor as funny and charismatic as Boris Johnson; nor as palpably decent and admirable as Frank Field; nor as mad-keen dedicated to constituency work as Rory -Stewart; nor as brutally effective as, say, George Galloway or Alex Salmond.

What’s more, I don’t even like politics. It’s ideas that interest me, not committee meetings and backstabbing and negotiation and compromise and other people’s crap speeches. I think it’s as well that my potential supporters are aware of this before we go any further: if you vote James Delingpole what you’re going to get is James Delingpole — not ‘James Delingpole does a half-arsed impression of what other people think a politician should look like’. Let me tell you some of things I won’t do. Peter Hain — my perfect anti-role-model — gave me some excellent examples on Any Questions? the other day. One is the cloying, sanctimonious speech designed to Show How Much You Care. Because we were in Machynlleth, scene of the murder of April Jones, Hain just couldn’t resist grandstanding about how sincerely he felt everyone’s pain.

Hain has form in this regard. This was, as far as I’m aware, the first time in recorded history where Hain didn’t use Any Questions? to cram in at least five mentions of the heroic and selfless role he played as a young man in the struggle against apartheid. But I suppose that wouldn’t have left space for the three mentions he managed to squeeze in of another of his pet topics – the expensive, pointless, environmentally destructive Severn Barrage project.

Don’t get me wrong. I get as upset by a child’s senseless murder as the next sentient human being. What I can’t bear, though, is this formulaic parading of empathy that so many politicians feel is required of them these days. Especially when it’s followed by a posturing demand for yet more intrusive and counterproductive government -legislation.

Cant — that’s what politicians like Hain specialise in. (Change the odd letter and it also describes what they are.) And I absolutely refuse to engage in it, no matter how much cheap applause it wins me, because it’s intellectually dishonest, morally wrong and, worst of all, conducive to ill-considered, knee-jerk policymaking.

The electorate, I fear, are as much to blame for this as the political class. We pay far too much attention to surface trivia, like how much MPs claim in expenses or how nicely they answer your letter grumbling about the potholes in their constituency, and far too little about what matters most: the social and economic consequences of their bad decisions.

Consider just one example: the 2008 Climate Change Act — drafted by hard-left environmental activist Bryony Worthington, voted for by all but five MPs — will cost the taxpayer £18.3 billion every year for the next forty years, driving up the cost of energy but doing absolutely nothing to solve the largely imaginary problem of ‘climate change’. Do you know how many £1,600 ornamental duck houses you could buy with that every year? More than 11 million.

No one benefits if politicians are forever worrying about what some chippy, resentful git might think about their salary or their travelling first class. Nor if they are forever treading on eggshells to avoid saying or doing anything at which some lefty pressure group or some hysterical Twitter troll might choose to take offence. God knows, our political class are far too dull and career-safe as it is.

But what I do think they ought to be terrified of, all the time — to the extent that it keeps them awake at night, sweating cold fear — is enacting poor policy. You can be the most devoted constituency MP in the world with the most parsimonious expenses record in Westminster, but if you’ve spoken up for or voted for something as ill-thought-through and damaging as HS2 or renewable energy policy, then, quite simply, you have failed your country and your name deserves to live in infamy.

So that’s where I stand. There’s the deal. Take me or leave me: I really don’t mind which.

SOURCE





The judge was biased:  He was anti-press

He didn't care about misdeeds by others

Lord Justice Leveson has been plunged into new controversy after a police whistleblower revealed he was prevented from exposing how senior officers used the media to smear each other.

Peter Tickner, a former anti-fraud investigator, said he wanted to reveal dirty tricks campaigns within Scotland Yard to the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics last year – but was gagged from doing so.

Speaking publicly for the first time, the official claims senior figures within the Met Police prevented him from ‘speaking a truth that no one wanted to hear’.

Mr Tickner says he told Lord Justice Leveson that he wanted to reveal how senior officers leaked information to the media to discredit rivals and promote their own careers.

But days before he was due to give his evidence he was told by a member of the inquiry team he would be denied the chance to do so.

The judge made his ruling after objections by the Metropolitan Police.

The controversy follows recent claims of double standards at the inquiry, launched in response to phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch’s News International newspapers.

But in recent weeks, it has emerged that phone hacking is commonly used by other non-media businesses, including law and insurance firms, yet was largely ignored by Leveson, with only a passing reference in his final report.

The judge has also has been criticised for refusing to investigate claims of a conflict of interest over the love affair between Carine Patry Hoskins, a barrister at the inquiry, and David Sherborne, who represented hacking victim Hugh Grant.

Last night, Tory MP Rob Wilson said: ‘It is a matter of great concern that the Leveson inquiry ruled out potentially significant evidence about the conduct of the police.

‘It is increasingly clear that it focused on the press, while going soft on wrongdoing by others. It raises concerns as to whether Leveson gave a balanced account.

This is very worrying given recent disturbing revelations about police conduct. Mr Tickner’s evidence must be properly looked at.’

Mr Tickner was the former director of internal audits at Scotland Yard investigating the misuse of funds, but left the Met in 2009.

He signed a confidentiality agreement before he left, which prevented him from going public about his concerns, so says the Leveson Inquiry was the only forum which granted him protection from speaking out.

Mr Tickner took early retirement in 2009 to set up his own investigative and audit business.

In a draft statement to Leveson, he told of three high-profile cases in which he believed senior officers used their access to confidential material to leak information to newspapers in a bid to destroy internal rivals.

The leaks apparently related to a bungled raid by counter-terrorism police in Forest Gate, East London in which a suspect was mistakenly shot; the expenses of former head of counter-terrorism, Andy Hayman; and former Commissioner Sir Ian Blair’s links to a friend who won £3 million police contract.

Mr Tickner says he wanted to speak out at the inquiry after police chiefs rejected his pleas to track down officers responsible for smears.

He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I told the police I wanted to be an official witness to the inquiry about relations between the police and the press.

'When they ignored me, the only way I could raise the issue was by going directly to the Leveson team. The effect was to gag me from speaking.’

Lord Justice Leveson said in his two-page judgment that he couldn’t hear Mr Tickner’s evidence because he didn’t have the resources, the time to investigate the claims fully, and that it was partly irrelevant.

But Mr Tickner says this decision kept his ‘highly relevant’ claims secret. ‘Lord Justice Leveson denied me a public platform where I could have spoken without fear of any legal action against me for speaking a truth no one wanted to hear.’

Metropolitan Police lawyers told Leveson it would be ‘unfair’ to senior officers, including Sir Ian Blair and Sir Paul Stephenson, his deputy and later successor, if Mr Tickner was allowed to give evidence.

The Met’s QC told the inquiry that the evidence was aimed at ‘settling old scores’.

Mr Tickner said: ‘Whoever suggested that clearly doesn’t know me. All I cared about was whether officers had behaved stupidly or badly with public funds.

‘Senior police officers should be acting in the public interest, not running personal agendas at the taxpayer’s expense.

'The public needs to know that the behaviour of some senior officers was not acceptable. They should be accountable for their actions but in my experience rarely were.’

‘I saw it as my duty to give evidence about unacceptable relations between senior officers and the press.’

A spokesman for Lord Leveson last night said the judge had given a ‘comprehensive explanation’ of why Mr Tickner was not called to give evidence to the inquiry.  He added: ‘The ruling could have been challenged at the time and was not.’

However, Mr Tickner said he could not afford any legal representation to make such a challenge.

SOURCE






Yes There Sure Is a Slippery Slope

Not only do the homosexual militants go ballistic when you mention a slippery slope in action, but even friendly critics advise that we not use the term. Well, I do not care much about the mere terminology – it is the reality which I really am concerned about here.

And there most certainly is a slippery slope in action. If you don’t like the term, use another, such as the open door effect. It is real and it is happening all the time. The more the militants deny it is happening, the more we see it taking place.

When the US Supreme Court handed out its decision on marriage last week, including its attack on the Defence of Marriage Act, the polyamorists instantly came out in force. They demanded – quite logically – that if homosexual marriage is a goer, then there is no reason why group marriage cannot be legalised as well.

One article on this written just before the Court decision offers some revealing quotes: “Anita Wagner Illig, a longtime polyamory community spokesperson who operates the group Practical Polyamory, is unsure of the direct impact of a ruling that would legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. Until recently, she noted, ‘the polyamory community has expressed little desire for legal marriage,’ but now more options seem possible in the future. ‘We polyamorists are grateful to our [LGBT] brothers and sisters for blazing the marriage equality trail,’ Illig said.

“Illig believes there is indeed a ‘slippery slope’ toward legal recognition for polygamy if the court rules in favor of nationwide same-sex marriage, an argument typically invoked by anti-gay marriage advocates. ‘A favorable outcome for marriage equality is a favorable outcome for multi-partner marriage, because the opposition cannot argue lack of precedent for legalizing marriage for other forms of non-traditional relationships,’ she said.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who is representing a polygamist family, said this: “There is no reason that the decision should impact polygamy and particularly the Brown case in Utah. Polygamists are where homosexual couples were before 2003 and the Lawrence [v. Texas] decision” – a case striking down laws against homosexual relations.

Another article quotes more excited polyamorists: “Anne Wilde, a vocal advocate for polygamist rights who practiced the lifestyle herself until her husband died in 2003, praised the court’s decision as a sign that society’s stringent attachment to traditional ‘family values’ is evolving. ‘I was very glad… The nuclear family, with a dad and a mom and two or three kids, is not the majority anymore,’ said Wilde. ‘Now it’s grandparents taking care of kids, single parents, gay parents. I think people are more and more understanding that as consenting adults, we should be able to raise a family however we choose.’

“‘We’re very happy with it,’ said Joe Darger, a Utah-based polygamist who has three wives. ‘I think [the court] has taken a step in correcting some inequality, and that’s certainly something that’s going to trickle down and impact us.’

“Noting that the court found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional because the law denied marriage rights to a specific class of people, Darger said, ‘Our very existence has been classified as criminal… and I think the government needs to now recognize that we have a right to live free as much as anyone else’.”

Wilde can see the clear logic in all this, and the clear slippery slope in action: “I’m not a fortune-teller, but it seems like if more people are accepting of gay marriage, it would follow that polygamist marriage wouldn’t be criticized quite so much.”

Even the Economist magazine, which is in favour of homosexual marriage, had an article on this recently, and yes they too used the term “slippery slope” at the very outset. “Now that the federal government recognises the marriages of same-sex couples from enlightened states, what’s next? Polygamy? Well, polygamists are hopeful. And it does stand to reason. DOMA was struck down in no small part because it picks out a certain class of people and, by denying them recognition of their marriages, denies their families equal freedom and dignity.

“Can it be denied that polygamous families, whose marital arrangements are illegal, much less unrecognised, are denied equal liberty and are made to suffer the indignity active discrimination? Joe Darger, a Utahn with three wives, has said, ‘Our very existence has been classified as criminal… and I think the government needs to now recognize that we have a right to live free as much as anyone else’.”

Matt K. Lewis of the Daily Caller asks: “What’s magical about the number two?” Quite right. Once you jettison gender in the marriage equation, why not abandon number as well? Indeed, why worry about things like age as well?

The Economist piece concludes with a hearty endorsement of polyamory: “Same-sex-marriage activists have wisely sought to separate themselves from advocates of even more exotic marital arrangements. However, as Mr Lewis suggests, the idea that marriage is an inherently heterosexual institution is less plausible than the idea that it is inherently exclusive to couples. If a man can love a man, a woman can love a woman and a man. And if they all love each other… well, what’s the problem? Refraining from criminalising families based on such unusual patterns of sentiment is less than the least we can do.

“If the state lacks a legitimate rationale for imposing on Americans a heterosexual definition of marriage, it seems pretty likely that it likewise lacks a legitimate rationale for imposing on Americans a monogamous definition of marriage. Conservatives have worried that same-sex marriage would somehow entail the ruination of the family as the foundation of society, but we have seen only the flowering of family values among same-sex households, the domestication of the gays. Whatever our fears about polyamorous marriage, I suspect we’ll find them similarly ill-founded. For one thing, what could be more family-friendly than four moms and six dads?”

When mainstream journals like the Economist start talking this way, then you know we have a slippery slope in action. The militant homosexuals can keep pretending it does not exist, but as I have just documented here, and in so many other articles, the slope is most certainly alive and well.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

In Britain, many couples these days have children even though they are not married.  It is perfectly accepted on the whole.  Part of the reason for that has to be an awareness of what a huge burden to men current divorce laws can be.  Men just balk at the thought of tying themselves up in that way.  So it would seem that onerous divorce laws are to a degree self-defeating -- in that people evade them by not marrying in the first place.  And the incidence of ex-nuptial births seems to be steadily increasing.

There is a reasonable case to be made that being born and bred within a marriage is beneficial for children.  In that case governments should be reversing the anti-marriage stance embodied in their divorce laws and become actively pro-marriage.  A marriage should at least not expose either of the participants to  major legal penalties if it breaks down.

In the interim, it would be a helpful development if some of the churches offered a full traditional marriage service that did not end with the signing of government paperwork.  The wedding would then be a solely religious service, not a service of the State.  That would be a reversion to how marriage was for many centuries.  The couple could perhaps sign some private paperwork of their own or the church's devising at the conclusion of the ceremony.

The availability of such an option should hasten the demise of state-registered marriage and perhaps encourage revision of penalties attached to it  -- JR




Guess the missing word below

GREENSBORO, N.C. — A massive fight in downtown Greensboro Saturday night has some city leaders taking a hard look at bringing back the teen curfew.  Nearly 400 people were involved in the several fights that happened along Elm Street.

Greensboro police arrested 11 people ranging in age from 16 to 20-years-old. Officers had to use pepper spray and a stun gun to try to get the crowd under control. Greensboro Police Department had to call UNCG Police and Guilford County for extra help.

Some officers minor injuries following the fights. As soon as one fight stopped another started.

The security cameras outside of Syn and Sky nightclub caught many of the brawls. The footage shows two groups of teens walking toward each other on Elm Street and several people running away into the streets.

Mike Carter is the owner of Syn and Sky and thinks it’s about time to reenact the 11 p.m. curfew that was enforced in 2011.
“It makes no sense for teenagers to be out roaming around on a Friday or Saturday night, or any night for that matter,” Carter said.

SOURCE

The missing word is a color






Black barber didn't like competition


A barber has been spared jail after he beat up a rival hairdresser with a beer bottle when he stole a customer after opening a new salon next door. Melusi Sithole, 35, owner of Big Daddy's became angry when former trainee Salah Barani opened his own business next door.

A court heard the last straw for Sithole came when he saw one of his customers going for a £8 trim at the new salon called Pill Barber Shop.

He went into the shop and shouted at Shane Davis for taking his custom to his new rival. Sithole then hit Mr Barani, 29, over the head with a beer bottle which the victim claimed left him with long-term amnesia. Sithole punched and kicked Mr Barani while he was on the floor.

He was also accused of hitting him with a three-foot metal pole used for shelving during the attack on January 6 last year, but was found not guilty of possessing an offensive weapon.

Prosecutor Ieuan Morris said: 'It was a vicious attack which left Mr Barani with a cut to his left ear and a wound on the right shoulder blade. 'He is still suffering from memory loss more than 18 months later.'

The attack took place in the docklands suburb of Pill, Newport, South Wales.

Mr Barani told the court: 'I still don’t know what I’m doing, I still don’t know who I am.'

But Sithole told police he acted in self-defence after being punched by his rival.

He told Newport Crown Court Mr Barani threw a punch after he had asked regular customer Mr Davies why he was having his hair cut at the rival shop.

Sithole said the bottle of Budweiser he had been drinking 'just broke' on his rival’s head and denied beating him with a metal pole.

Sithole, of Newport, South Wales, was found guilty of unlawful wounding but was cleared of wounding with intent and possessing an offensive weapon.

He was given an 18-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, and must complete 200 hours of unpaid work.

Sithole, who has since closed his shop, was also ordered to pay £800 in compensation to Mr Barani.

SOURCE








Quentin Letts "gets it" about fathers and daughters

I treasure the magical bond between father and daughter - so I weep for Pierce Brosnan

One photograph shows a grown-up Charlotte Brosnan in 1999. She is walking down a street with her stepfather Pierce Brosnan, hugging him tight while he kisses the top of her head.

The other photograph shows her in 1980 when she was nine and the actor had just married her widowed mother.  Little Charlotte shelters inside his arm, her expression one of trusting adoration in her new family.

Though there are 19 years between the two snapshots, Charlotte’s smile barely changes. It is one of devotion to a man who, though not her biological father, is plainly a source of immeasurable support.  He is her security, her safety, her rock. And she is his bonny little girl.

Charlotte Brosnan died this week of ovarian cancer, aged just 42. As I looked at these two photographs yesterday I must confess I found it damnably hard to keep an even keel.

Why should this be? I never met Charlotte Brosnan. I know her father only from his work as a film actor.  Really, it should be none of my business to presume such sorrow over their private misfortune. How dare my stranger’s eyes well?

Yet, as a father of two daughters (aged 14 and ten), I found myself deeply affected by those photographs. It touched a nerve deep within me, a nerve I barely realised I had.

The death of a youngish mother — Charlotte leaves two young children — is always sad, but why did this story resonate so strongly?

The answer says more about human nature and, I suspect, the survival instinct than it does about some refined sensibility on my own insignificant part.

It may also tell us something that sits awkwardly with the egalitarianism of our age. We are told to be blind to gender. We try. We observe the protocols of feminism. We are all Suffragettes now.

But the fact of the matter remains: there is a special tie between girls and their fathers, one that political dogma will never surpass.  Exceptions will no doubt exist. Some fathers are feckless and some daughters are unloving. But can the majority of dads deny it?

There is, between daughters and their male parents, a special connection. If it is not too bad a pun, given Pierce Brosnan’s best-known role, you could call it a magic bond. Here is the chemistry of that most powerful of human units, the family.

Shortly before our second child was born in 1998, a colleague asked me if my wife and I hoped for a boy or a girl.

I did that usual thing of saying we did not mind what gender the infant was, as long as mother and babe were in good health. We already had a boy, aged one. We told ourselves we did not mind if he acquired a brother or sister.

How lucky I count myself that we had a girl. Eveleen was born in the middle of a hot August night. By the time I reached the hospital she had been tidied up and was presented to me wrapped in swaddling bands, or the NHS modern equivalent thereof.

She had a shock of inky black hair and was bright red, covered in wrinkles.

‘She’s a hoot!’ the midwife said. I looked down at that tiny ‘hoot’ and, far from seeing the angry lavatory brush she no doubt resembled, I saw only instant, overwhelming serenity.

It is a moment — a smiting, a thunderbolt — I can practically taste to this day, even as I type these words. I can remember clearly the room, the angle at which Eveleen lay in my arms  and the striking concept of something special.

I realised that the all-suffusing, protective love I was feeling for her was unlike what I had felt the first time I held my son just 13 months earlier.

When he had been born, I was chuffed, relieved, daunted, happily energised and more —you know, proud Pop lights a cigar and all that.

But here, holding a daughter, it felt quite, quite different. This, in my arms, was not a future scallywag, a little cricketer, a prospective partner for my middle-aged trips to the pub.

This was a daughter. This babe was someone to be shielded. Yes, the protective reaction was quite definitely strong.

Saying that, I almost feel I should apologise to today’s equality practitioners.

How can we fathers start to explain this distinctive response to daughters?  I felt the same in 2003 when our second daughter, Honor, arrived in our lives.

Is it still the old caveman in us? Is it that we regard boys as future hunting partners — heavens, perhaps even rivals — while girls will need to be guarded so that they can continue our lineage?

An anthropologist might know the answer to that, but I suspect there is also a historic tenderness that we fathers feel towards women, one that the past half-century of thrusting feminism has not entirely eroded.

Is it unfair on our sons to say this? Might boys not feel left out by this state of affairs?

I hope not. I could not be prouder of our son Claud, now 15. He has had a few problems in life — not the least of which has been having this Anglo-Saxon stuffshirt for a father — but I love him as an English father will his lad, ie without too much ostentatious fuss.

Claud, himself being as English as roast beef, seems content with things as they are.

My daughters, meanwhile, have a different relationship with me from the one they have with my wife.  It is no better or worse. Just different.

So much for the relationship of parent to child. What about that of daughter to dad?

When my dear father was on his deathbed three years ago, I saw the radiant sensitivity with which my sisters responded to him.

I comprehended that my relationship with him was not precisely the same.  I did not love him less, but I loved him in a male way. It was the same with my wife and her late father.  From those photographs of the Brosnans, I am confident that it was the same with them, even though Pierce was Charlotte’s stepfather.

Is this about male role models in human relationships? Is it about the way families work?

Does it explain why that line in Edith Nesbit’s The Railway Children, when the adolescent Roberta sees her long imprisoned father and runs down the platform crying ‘Daddy! My Daddy!’, has us weeping buckets every time?

Perhaps it also explains why, for me, the premise of Shakespeare’s King Lear — a father disowning his youngest daughter, and two of his daughters turning viciously on their father — is so hard to accept. I’ve never really ‘bought’ the plot of Lear.

The photos of the Brosnans helped me to understand a little why. More than anything, this week’s story was of one famous man’s immense personal sadness.

Pierce Brosnan, far from living down to the stereotype of the selfish film star, has been a magnificent parent.  He cared for Charlotte after he married her mother Cassandra (Charlotte’s father having died). Love displaced disaster.  Then, in 1991, Cassandra died aged 43, also from ovarian cancer. Pierce became the orphaned Charlotte’s even closer stepfather.

Now, dread fate has again smashed the Brosnans’ lives. We behold this tale and we surely tremble.

Yet amid the awful grief the family must be feeling, a grief on which we should beware intruding any further, there is also the redeeming, golden thread of paternal love.

SOURCE





Australia:  NSW bill to ignite debate over abortion


Good ol' Fred.  He never gives up

A controversial bill giving legal rights to an unborn child will be supported by the O'Farrell government under a deal with Christian Democrat MP Fred Nile in exchange for his support for crucial state budget legislation to privatise Newcastle Port.

The Reverend Nile said the government had promised to pass through the upper house "Zoe's Law", which creates a separate criminal offence for causing harm to or the destruction of a foetus and stemmed from the deaths of unborn children in driving accidents.

The government told Mr Nile it reserved the right to amend the bill in the lower house.  Upper house MPs were caught by surprise when the government supported an urgency motion to debate Zoe's Law on Thursday.

The day before, the government won Mr Nile's support for its ports bill, with the privatisation of Newcastle Port worth at least $700 million.

Mr Nile's bill is already creating disquiet in the O'Farrell government. Liberal MP Marie Ficarra told Parliament that, although she personally supported the bill, "government members are in a quandary about this bill."

She said no one expected to be debating it, and MPs were "deeply concerned" by it. "It is about valuing the life of a woman and her unborn child and the life of the foetus at all stages," Ms Ficarra said.

Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi said the bill was "extremely worrying" and a step in the wrong direction for the right of women to control their bodies.

"This bill clearly gives the foetus a personhood status and seems to be a wedge for the anti-abortion lobby," Ms Faruqi said. "It creates a distinct criminal offence that relates to the foetus and is unrelated to the woman."

Current law deals with vehicle accidents involving pregnant women by recognising the crime of aggravated injury to the woman if her foetus is harmed or dies.

The government refused to comment on any deal with Mr Nile.

Mr Nile said the government had not given him details of the amendments it might make in the lower house but said he would not accept changes to the bill's essence.  "The essence is to grant legal status to the unborn child in the womb," Mr Nile said.

He denied the bill was about abortion. "Some Labor women are nervous and saying I am trying to ban abortion, but I have put in an exemption to all medical procedures."

The bill was targeting vehicle accidents and "all violent acts" such as attacks on women by violent partners, he said.

A quarter of the O'Farrell cabinet is comprised of women, and the issue is likely to be highly contentious among Liberal moderates.

Brodie Donegan, the mother of Zoe, for whom the bill is named, previously told Fairfax Media she did not support Mr Nile's bill and he had not spoken to her about it.

Ms Donegan was eight months pregnant when she was run down by a drug-affected driver in 2009, and Zoe was stillborn.

The Labor government in 2005 amended the Crimes Act to expand the definition of grievous bodily harm to a woman to include the destruction of a foetus, after earlier rejecting a proposal to create a new criminal offence of killing an unborn child.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

Another British bitch  -- false rape claims  are constant in Britain

Cab driver falsely accused of rape saved by his phone app

A woman who falsely accused a taxi driver of a knifepoint sex attack has been jailed after he exposed her lies using an app on his mobile phone.

Mohammed Asif was left in tears in a police cell after Astria Berwick told officers he had carried out an assault on her in his cab.  But the 34-year-old eventually proved his innocence with a voice recording app he was using in his taxi because his CCTV was broken.

Berwick, of Bingham, Notts, was sentenced to 16 months in prison after admitting perverting the course of justice.

Nottingham Crown Court heard she had used Mr Asif's taxi on February 20, then called police to say she had been the victim of a serious sexual assault.

Judge Michael Stokes QC, The Recorder of Nottingham, said: "This was outrageous behaviour by the defendant against a wholly innocent man who had been saved by the recording on his phone."

Berwick had invented the story for "some unaccountable reason", he added.

Mr Asif, a father-of-two from Carlton, Nottingham, said the experience had torn his life apart, leaving him unable to face working again for a month, having problems sleeping and causing him to lose a stone in weight.

He said: "She changed my life. I'm completely different now. I'm scared to go out.  "I keep thinking, 'I just dropped her off, she was just a normal passenger, why has she done that?"

He said he felt "really lucky" he had switched on the app on the day of the alleged attack, as without it he believed he would now be on remand waiting to face trial.

He added: "If I ever met her again, although I don't want to, I'd just ask 'why?'"

SOURCE





BBC faces referral to Parliament's sleaze watchdog over pay-offs

The BBC could be referred to Parliament's sleaze watchdog after refusing to comply with an order to give MPs the names of 150 senior managers who received six figure pay-offs.

Earlier this month Public Accounts Committee used its powers to demand the identities of those who had received the pay-offs, a quarter of which had been found by the National Audit Office to be excessive.

However, on Tuesday the BBC wrote to the committee to say it would not be disclosing the information because it wanted to protect the privacy of the former managers and the corporation's independence.

Stephen Barclay, a Conservative member of the PAC, said: "It is shocking that the BBC has got so powerful that it thinks it can chose when it is accountable. Why are they trying so hard to shut this down if they have nothing to hide?"

In September, MPs on the committee are likely to vote on whether to refer the BBC's refusal to supply to the information for debate in the House of Commons.

MPs in the Commons can then agree to refer the matter to the the Committee of Privileges, which would decide on whether the corporation should be formally rebuked.

In a letter to the committee Andrew Scadding, the BBC's head of corporate affairs, said the corporation was willing to name the executives and managers who authorised the pay-offs, but not the individuals.

It said that the names could only be released with the permission of the individuals because of their right to privacy under the data protection act.

Mr Scadding wrote: "To meet our legal obligations we must therefore look at the circumstances of each individual case, which involves contacting each recipient to seek their consent to disclosure or give them the opportunity to raise objections."

He also raised concerns that by agreeing to supply the information the BBC could jeopardise its independence by becoming "directly accountable for its management to the PAC and thus to Members of Parliament".

MPs argue that there is a public interest in releasing the information and that the sovereignty of Parliament supersedes the data protection act.

SOURCE






Australia: Brain-dead politicians want new laws to cut the power of scalpers

People who buy from scalpers complain about high prices.  But without scalpers they would have to do without tickets altogether

NEW laws cracking down on ticket scalpers will be introduced to protect sports and music fans from dramatically inflated prices to events like the NRL Grand Final and Pink's rock concerts.

The O'Farrell government is close to finalising an aggressive new approach as the world's biggest online ticket exchange, the Swiss-based viagogo, ramps up operations in Australia to sell scalpers' tickets.

Viagogo began selling NRL grand final tickets this week at double the official price - even before tickets were released to the general public.

Tickets to rock star Pink's shows in Sydney are "sold out" through the official agent Ticketek, but dozens of different ticket options are available online, as long as you don't mind paying hundreds of dollars extra.

Cricket chiefs also face a fan backlash, with Ashes tickets to the first three days of the Sydney Test, which sold out in two hours last week, now selling on viagogo for twice the price.

An angry Sports Minister Graham Annesley has launched a stinging attack, telling The Daily Telegraph scalpers were "unscrupulous profiteers motivated only by greed".

Frustrated NRL bosses yesterday cancelled 100 grand final tickets that sprung up on eBay, where a scalper was trying to reap a quick $9500 profit by selling $165 tickets for $260 each.

But scalping is notoriously hard to police - one scalper claimed yesterday he purchased 20 State of Origin tickets from a team official before one of the matches in Brisbane last year. The scalper, who declined to be named, said he gained preferred access to grand final tickets this week by buying dozens of different NRL season ticket programs from different clubs throughout the year.

Under the proposed new laws, sports organisations and event promoters would be given the power to set and enforce their own terms and conditions on ticket sales to different events.

NSW Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe said the promoters would be given the legal power to refuse entry to fans who purchased tickets in breach of the terms. Promoters would have the flexibility to allow fans to onsell tickets at a capped mark-up price or ban the practice all together.

Ticket sellers using websites such as eBay and viagogo would have to post a photograph of the ticket, clearly showing the seat number, enabling promoters to trace the source of scalped tickets.

"We're looking for a light approach from government by passing responsibility over to the sports codes and promoters," Mr Stowe said.

Sports organisations including the NRL, the Australian Rugby Union, Cricket Australia and the Football Federation of Australia are hailing the proposed laws as "best in class".

Ticket scalpers also targeted the recent Lions rugby tour and last week's Manchester United match in Sydney, which sold out in seven minutes late last year. FFA officials told the state government between 200 and 300 ManU match tickets were regularly on sale on eBay at inflated prices at any one time.

Fair Trading Minister Anthony Roberts and Mr Annesley, who pushed for anti-scalping laws as a former NRL employee, are planning to announce the crackdown during September's football finals series, although it is unlikely legislation would be passed in time for the grand final.

"We want to give fans a fair go at buying tickets, while also protecting fans from rip-offs and fraud," Mr Roberts said.

Mr Annesley said the government did not want to attack the secondary market providers, such as eBay, which helped genuine fans offload tickets if they were unable to attend the event.

Several official ticket agents, including Moshtix, Ticketmaster and Showbiz, believe the industry should be self-regulated, but required to provide important customer protections, such as tools to enable fans to transfer tickets to friends and sell-back tickets.

"I haven't seen the proposals but I don't believe governments should be involved in a free market," Showbiz chief executive Craig McMaster said.

eBay is also opposed, pointing to the 2010 Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council study into scalping which found additional consumer protection laws were not merited because reselling tickets in Australia "does not cause significant consumer detriment".

eBay argues that sometimes promoters limited tickets to the public due to commitments to sponsors and corporate partners, pointing to a Justin Bieber concert in the US in February in which only 7 per cent of tickets went on public sale.

Tanya Ilkiw, 22, a Sydney advertising executive, said she purchased tickets to electronic performer Flume on eBay in April because it was convenient and she paid no more than the official price.

"I trust sites like eBay or gumtree as opposed to purchasing on the street because you can track it," she said.

Some ticket operators say cracking down will drive "scalpers back to the pubs", wiping away protections that exist online. Anti-scalping laws in Queensland have proven to be ineffective - dozens of different ticket options are available for Pink's shows in Brisbane on viagogo.com, while Ticketek is only offering a limited number of $400 VIP packages.

Viagogo has eluded government control in other countries. When the British government banned the resale of Olympic tickets last year, it simply packed up its UK operation and moved to Zurich where it was exempt from the law.

SOURCE





South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi spells out his six F-word solutions to save Western civilisation

THE pillars of Western society are under threat, and Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi has a plan to prop them up.

Mr Bernardi has written a Bible for conservatives based on the ‘f words’: Faith, Family, Flag, Free enterprise, Federation and Freedom.

“I believe we need to re-establish the primacy of the family, the social and economic virtues that seem to have been neglected for at least two generations, yet are as innate within the human spirit today as they have ever been,” he told The Advertiser.

TELL US: What do you think of Senator Bernardi’s solutions?

“Only by returning to conservative principles can our nation confidently confront the significant challenges that face us, endure times of hardship and prosperity with equanimity, and work towards an Australia which is dynamic, confident and growing in international stature.

“This will require a radical departure from the growing and all-pervasive acceptance that critical and discerning moral judgement is somehow unfair.”

Senator Bernardi is number one on the Liberal’s Senate ticket, but moved to the backbench after a furore over his views on same-sex marriage.

He is a prolific blogger and has written the book under the working title of The Conservative Revolution.

He said it details why the pillars are important and need to be restored and the “possible consequences if they are not”.

“I hope it will spark debate about our nation’s future and encourage people to become more active in contributing to public policy,” he said.

In today’s Advertiser Senator Bernardi also discusses some of the more controversial topics that have propelled him into the headlines.

While he has been accused of being anti-Islam - particular after he called for a ban on burqas - Senator Bernardi said his criticism of the religion is based around its fundamentalist principles, and that if he was born into a Muslim country he would be Muslim himself.

He said he was first confronted by women being “hidden away” when he was working in Northern Africa, which helped shape his views.

“(The burqa) is a flag of fundamentalism, a symbol of oppression. We had men in Afghanistan fighting to liberate women from this oppression yet we’re allowing it to flourish here,” he said.

During the lunchtime conversation he also spoke about his comments on polyamory and bestiality, saying his points - which seemed to link them to same-sex marriage - may have been “clumsily made” but were also “wilfully misinterpreted”.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

More multiculturalism in Britain


Yannick Ntesa, 25

A gang who laughed as they doused a woman in acid while she walked her six-year-old twins home from school have been jailed for a total of 44 years.

The attackers was heard laughing as the noxious liquid was sprayed at the screaming mother in front of her two boys outside Upton Cross Primary School in Upton Park, east London.

Speaking after the attack the woman, who suffered horrendous burns to her face and body, said: 'I saw a man approach me who was carrying something in a bottle.

'He threw it over me and after a few seconds it started burning. I was crying: "Please help me! Please help me!"'

The 44-year-old mother, from Plaistow, fled to a neighbour's home where water was poured over her burning clothes.  Some of the acid burnt her son's satchel while another mother also suffered minor injuries in the attack on March 24, 2011.

The victim was rushed to the Royal London Hospital and later transferred to a specialist burns unit in Chelmsford, Essex.  She suffered 16 per cent chemical burns and is still receiving medical treatment.

Following a six week trial at Blackfriars Crown Court a jury convicted Ntesa, Motno and Miah of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm and throwing a corrosive fluid on another with intent.

No motive was given for the attack but Detective Inspector John Reynolds, of Newham CID, said: 'This was a truly shocking attack on a mother who had her two very young children with her at the time.

'It was only by chance that those children were not seriously injured. They did however suffer terrible shock from seeing their own mother so horrifically assaulted.

SOURCE





Sniffer dogs offend Muslims in Britain

POLICE sniffer dogs trained to spot terrorists at railway stations may no longer come into contact with Muslim passengers – after complaints that it is against the suspects’ religion.

A report for the Transport Department has raised the prospect that the animals should only touch passengers’ luggage because it is considered “more acceptable”.

In the Muslim faith, dogs are deemed to be spiritually “unclean”. But banning them from touching passengers would severely restrict their ability to do their job.

The report follows trials of station security measures in the wake of the 2005 London suicide bomb attacks. In one trial, some female Muslims said the use of a body scanner was also unacceptable because it was tantamount to being forced to strip.

British Transport Police last night insisted it would still use sniffer dogs – which are trained to detect explosives – with any passengers regardless of faith, but handlers would remain aware of “cultural sensitivities”.

Critics said the complaints were just the latest example of minority religions trying to force their rules and morals on British society.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: “As far as I am concerned, everyone should be treated equally in the face of the law and we cannot have people of different religious groups laying the law down. I hope the police will go about their business as they would do normally.”

News of the security setback came as the Government yesterday admitted that installing 100 per cent airport-style screening at rail and Tube stations was “not feasible”.

Instead extra sniffer dogs and X-ray machines will be used to search passengers.

During the trials, passengers stopped in London had the exterior of their bags checked by dogs. But in Brighton, dogs patrolled the station concourse and were walked past passengers by their handlers.

The report concluded: “The use of sniffer dogs was generally problem­atic for Muslim respondents on rel­igious grounds if there was the potential for the dog to make direct contact with them.”

When Muslims have washed for certain forms of worship, they would have to repeat the ritual if they came into contact with a dog.

One young Asian man told re­searchers: “We are not supposed to have dogs. It is against our religion.”

Another Asian man said: “I don’t mind dogs in the park or walking near me, but sniffer dogs? I don’t think that’s right, on the station, the way they use them.”

Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Com­mission, said even dogs touching baggage would be an issue for a Muslim preparing to pray. But he stressed that it should be easy to allow dogs to check passengers without physical contact.

“There is a way of dealing with this and we just need to be sensitive,” he said.

In another trial on the Heathrow Express platform at Paddington station in London, there were inst­ances when the body scan – which creates an image on a monitor – was considered unacceptable by female Muslims, the report said.

One Muslim woman complained: “Sometimes I wear clothing which is not so tight. It will be shown on (the monitor) and somebody is looking at it. It defeats the whole purpose of me covering up.”

The report, on five rail security trials in 2006, also showed that some Asians and black people felt they could be selected for tests because of their ethnicity.

A Transport Department spokes­man said the use of sniffer dogs was a matter for the police. But he stressed that the report was only a conclusion of passengers’ views.

A British Transport Police spokes­man said sniffer dogs would continue to be used with any passenger but officers would be considerate where appropriate.

He added: “We are obviously aware of, and sensitive to, cultural sensitivities. BTP officers do have the power to stop and search anyone under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act.

“This also covers the use of dog handlers and dogs, which are used to ‘indicate’ any substance they have been trained to detect.

“As a force we obviously look at any or all feedback about how people from all faiths and backgrounds view the use of dogs, and how we can incorporate that into how the dogs and their handlers interact with people.”

Announcing new security measures to screen Tube and mainline rail passengers, the Government said yesterday that surveys had shown the public would be unlikely to accept major delays to journeys.

People also wanted to ensure their personal privacy was protected.

British Transport Police said it was enhancing its existing stop and search capabilities with the use of X-ray equipment for screening bags, along with the deployment of more sniffer dogs. It said a proportion of passengers and their bags would be searched with minimal delay and inconvenience to the public.

Transport Minister Tom Harris said: “We will continue to work with British Transport Police and rail operators to assess the effectiveness and impact of these new measures.

“We will use this evidence, and that from elsewhere in the UK and abroad, to develop further ways of keeping the travelling public secure using proportionate measures.”

SOURCE





Israel freezes co-operation with EU in Palestinian territories

Move follows European Union directive banning funding for bodies linked with Israeli settlements

Israel has frozen co-operation with the European Union on work in the Palestinian territories in retaliation for an EU directive banning funding or grants for bodies with links to Israeli settlements.

The move, authorised by the defence minister, Moshe Ya'alon, affects all projects requiring permits from the Civil Administration, which governs Area C, the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control; access of EU diplomats and representatives to Area C and Gaza; and joint meetings.

No permits have been issued to EU humanitarian aid workers to enter Gaza for several days, according to a western diplomatic source.

"We are freezing the relationship on everything," said an Israeli official. "We did this as soon as we heard [about the directive]. We can't act like nothing happened."

The EU provides aid and equipment to Palestinian communities in Area C, many of whom are threatened with displacement and the demolition of their homes, animal shelters and other structures. The EU also helps train Palestinian security forces.

The directive, published in Brussels last Friday, bans the award of grants, funding or prizes to Israeli institutions located in or with links to settlements across the pre-1967 line. It was met with a furious reaction in Israel, with some claiming it could derail moves towards resuming peace negotiations.

The EU is also considering guidelines for its member states on the labelling of goods and produce which hail from settlements in order to allow consumers to make informed choices on purchases.

The EU was "concerned by reports that the Israeli ministry of defence has announced a number of restrictions affecting EU activities supporting the Palestinian people", said an EU source in Israel. "We have not received any official communication from the Israeli authorities. Our delegations on the spot are seeking urgent clarifications."

The EU and the Civil Administration are thought to have had constructive dialogue over projects in Area C, despite the demolition and threatened demolition by the Israeli military of a number of structures, such as solar panels, funded by European NGOs.

In April, the EU missions in Ramallah and Jerusalem issued a statement criticising the destruction of 22 structures in eight locations in Area C.

SOURCE





Arab values in multicultural Australia



Inaizi is an Arab surname so I think we can guess Harbi's religion.  And we know what that religion teaches about women.  So Harbi is a perfectly upright citizen by his own predatory values.  He probably feels quite hard done by.  "Harbi" does mean "unbeliever" so he may not be a Muslim but he has clearly absorbed the culture

HE is accused of making sleazy comments to female passengers, lying about his driving history, overcharging, snubbing a customer with a guide dog and running a cyclist off the road then deliberately reversing over his bike.

But, despite on paper being a candidate for Sydney's worst cabbie, Harbi Inaizi still thinks he should be able to keep his taxi licence.

The 48-year-old yesterday made a last-ditch plea in the Administrative Decisions Tribunal to overturn a decision to strip him of his cab licence.

Roads and Maritime Services took Mr Inaizi's licence away after a woman, referred to only as Tracey, came forward about his "inappropriate comments of a sexual nature" during a taxi trip last year.

She claimed when she got in his Silver Service cab the driver kept veering across the road while trying to look at her in the back seat.

She said he started asking, "do you have a man at home waiting for you?" before telling her he "had sex with a girl from New Zealand four months ago ... it was good".

"I f ... better at 47 than at 20," he allegedly said before his passenger asked him to stop and she jumped out of the taxi.

Mr Inaizi earlier appealed the ban, saying he needed to keep his licence because he had a family of five to support.

He claimed there was no proof he was the driver in the Tracey incident, despite GPS records showing his cab made the trip, and said he would never speak to a woman that way.

But, in a decision earlier this year, the tribunal believed the woman's version of events and declared the cabbie unfit to keep his licence.

Mr Inaizi had previously been given a warning after a series of complaints dotted throughout his decade-long taxi history.

In 2011 a woman complained the driver told her "no, don't do that - I like it" after she pulled down her skirt while getting into his cab.

He was accused of running into a cyclist then backing his cab over the man's bike and destroying it when the rider caught up to him.

He also failed to reveal a string of traffic offences, including three in one four-month period, on his licence renewal forms and kept driving his taxi after failing to return his suspended permit.

In a letter to the RMS, Mr Inaizi said he remembered the complaints and none of them were true, noting most of them came from ethnic minorities, not "Aussie people".

He said he told the other woman who complained that he liked "short fares" not "short skirts" and she had probably made up the comments.

Yesterday his lawyer David Wetmore said Mr Inaizi had never actually touched Tracey or "directly" suggested any sexual conduct.

The tribunal will give its final decision at a later date.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

Feminism as a form of racism

Below are some angry and foul-mouthed comments from Clementine Ford, an Australian feminist.  She is fired up about women getting more "recognition".   But how is that different from racism?  She sees herself not as an individual, but as a member of a valued group.  In her Fascist mind, people are divided into two groups: Men (evil) and women (virtuous):  Not all that different from Hitler.  Men by contrast don't think of themselves as primarily "men".  They think of themselves in much less broad categories.  My most common self-description, for instance, is "a born academic".  It never occurs to me to mention that I am a male.

And this refusal to treat people as just people, but instead  obsessing over what lies between their legs, is irritating. Feminist assertion tends to produce a backlash. Mostly men just shake their heads at it but, given anonymity, they may say what they really think of it and of the shrews who utter it.  Many people object to racism.  It is equally reasonable to object to feminism

Note her use of "we" in the last paragraph.  It could have come from a Hitler speech and is equally deluded and equally angry.  She just can't think of herself as an individual.  Her illusory "tribe" is all.  Women are in fact quite prone to hating one-another, as we see here.  And read here the scorn that a female literary critic heaps on Jane Austen!

When UK journalist and co-founder of The Women's Room Caroline Criado-Perez spearheaded a campaign to replace Charles Darwin’s image with Jane Austen’s on a British banknote, her efforts were rewarded by a sustained Twitter attack from some of the more repugnant turds excreted by society’s sulphurous bottom.

Within hours, Criado-Perez’ experience reinforced what female users of Twitter have known since its launch - that the social media site woefully fails to support the vast network of women who are subjected to abuse (often graphic and violent) simply for daring to have claim space in the ‘conversation’ that Twitter positions itself as being the locus of. She is now leading a campaign similar to the #fbrape one conducted a few months ago, with the intention of having Twitter become more accountable for the way their platform is used. Twitter has been threatened with a mass boycott on August 4 from prominent celebrities, MPs and writers should they continue to sidestep responsibility over the issue. (So far, Twitter UK general manager Tony Wang has responded by stating that they are looking at simplifying the process of reporting offensive tweets.)

The question of what can be done to counter gendered online abuse is routinely painted as a woman’s problem to solve with the most frequently offered directive being to ‘just ignore it’. Having experienced such unwelcome intrusions on repeated occasions, I am familiar with those responses aimed at discrediting the justifiable anger of being told, for example, that even though you’re too ugly to rape, you probably still deserve it. ‘Don’t pay attention to them’, such advice dictates. ‘You’re only giving them the attention they want.’ Or, ‘You have X number of followers, and this person only has a handful. Why are you abusing your power like this?’

Occasionally, I have been lectured on my attempts to ‘shut down free speech’ - as if it is my objection to sexual assault being used as a warning that threatens the fabric of society, and not the fact that some people still find it a useful tool of debate.

Criado-Perez quite rightly calls bullshit on this tactic, advocating instead a commitment to ‘shout back’. Ignoring abuse doesn’t make it go away. Believe me, I know. What it does is make you feel invaded, powerless and (if the troll in question seems to have a greater than usual insight into your online activities) vaguely paranoid. Too often, trolls are left untended simply because they are invisible. They are the Peeping Toms of the online world - they can peer through your windows, but you can’t see their faces. So to stop them from salivating over your distress, you become weathered against their hatred.

These misogynists ejaculate their rage all over the internet, using their threat of both a rutting penis and the denial of it to try and keep women in their place. It happened to Lindy West when she criticised the abundance of jokes about rape. It happened to Marion Bartoli when she won Wimbledon, and viewers decided she was too ugly and unf--kable to deserve this honour......

Well, women aren’t going to roll over and ignore it. We’re not going to enable their entitlement by keeping our mouths shut. Like Criado-Perez says, we’re shouting back - and if these misogynist troglodytes don’t like the sound of one banshee standing up for herself, they’re going to really hate it what it sounds like when millions of us do it together.

SOURCE





An Englishman in England might go to prison for calling an MP a coward

This story deserves as much coverage as possible.  Think about it. A man called Alex Cline is being prosecuted simply for calling an MP a coward.

I am not blaming the MP whose complaint led to this grotesque prosecution, though I hope even his party faithful refuse in disgust to vote for him at the next election. No, he did not decide that Mr. Cline should be prosecuted. In any case, I am grateful for this prosecution - because we now know how authoritarian English law has become. Except only readers of the Brighton and Hove local press do. The news may have travelled as far as Eastbourne or Worthing and it also reached someone who put it on on Facebook, where I came across it.

It is the law I criticise, but much more the culture and thinking from which the law springs. Rod Liddle a few months ago wrote with characteristic brilliance about this law here.

Liddle is witty but there is nothing light-hearted about the subject of freedom of speech, which is far more important than sex equality or the state of Britain's hospitals. I wrote about the threats to freedom of speech a few days ago here, but I am no longer sure that threats is the right word. In many ways freedom of speech no longer exists in the UK, though it flourishes in the former Communist countries, such as Romania, for the time being.

What an increasingly fascist society England now is. Not just a fascist state, but a fascist society, that goes along with this kind of thing. The suggestion that the police and the courts  are not justified in preventing people being offended is very alien to the spirit of modern day England. The idea that the state can run businesses has been debunked but not the idea that it can tell people how they should live. The idea that extensions of state power limit freedom does not make a lot of sense to most English people any more, provided that the state's intentions are supposedly benign. Mussolini's definition of fascism is largely true of English society:

“Everything in the state, nothing outside the state.”

William Pitt the Elder famously said that the poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. Why don't Prime Ministers say things like this any more instead of talking about schools and hospitals and economic growth?

Partly because there are all sorts of reasons why the forces of the Crown or other authorities can enter the poor man's cottage without a warrant or process of law or tap his telephone or read his correspondence. They can demolish his cottage and they certainly insist that it is fitted with fire alarms that go off continually if the poor man leaves the kitchen door open while cooking his meagre breakfast.

Actually, the poor man left his cottage long ago and it was bought by a rich stockbroker who only spends the occasional weekend there, but this is beside the point. The poor man does not repine. He no longer goes to his local public house, where he discussed politics with his pals, because it was closed due to the ban on smoking, so he sits at home drinking lager from the supermarket, which will soon become more expensive when minimum alcohol pricing becomes law. He spends his evening watching propaganda on television or pornography on the internet. He is content.

SOURCE






"Appropriate Thought" in the media

Fred Reed

People sometimes ask me why the media are so obtuse, why they seem to have so little grasp of the country they live in, and why the internet is eating them alive. 

I ask them to think of Tom Clancy. He wrote a book that with its children would be worth many, many  millions of dollars, and shopped it around the publishing houses of New York. They all bounced it. No interest. It probably got no further than a first reader, a recent co-ed at Barnard who thought a submarine was a sandwich. Clancy? Some crackpot who thinks he can write.

He sent it to the Naval Institute Press, which published it. It took off hugely. Only then did New York get involved.

You might ask: Why did the sophisticated (one would think) professionals of publishing, highly intelligent, very educated, with long years in the book racket—why did they not grab at The Hunt for Red October? Certainly it wasn´t a conspiracy. Nobody conspires not to make money.

The answer: They live in a bubble. They eat together, drink together, talk to each other. They think in unison. They largely went to the same schools, Ivies. They could all join Mensa if they wanted, but they don´t, because in New York you don´t have to hunt for smart company. They all know who Zola was. They can tell Goya from El Greco at a glance.

But they have never worked night shift in a gas station on a lonely road in Tennessee, shopped at Walmart, been in the same room with a firearm much less hunted deer, or been more than twenty feet from a flush toilet. The Hunt for...what? Some book about—some sort of submarine thing, wasn´t it? Who would read that?

So with the media. They are concentrated in Washington and New York. They don´t get out much. Editors naturally tend to hire people who agree with them, so everyone does. (I knew a couple of closet conservatives in the newsroom of the Washington Post, but they kept their heads down.) Papers say they want diversity in the newsroom, but by this they mean people of different colors who think the same things.

And of course diversity in the newsroom means homogeneity in the news: If you are, say, a white man sitting in a room with blacks, lesbians, real women, homosexuals and Chicanas, you can´t say anything that might offend any of them, because you have to sit next to them again the next day.

Reporters don´t have much curiosity. Go to NBC Washington and ask the editor whether she has been to Idaho to get to know the militias, (”Jesus, those crazies?”) or spent enough time in a police car to learn what actually goes on (“Oh god, oh god, I can´t put that on the air.”), or been in the military (“No, I was at Swarthmore.”), or spent a week in a cheap hotel in Bluefield, West Virginia to see what people think.

If she did go, she would overdress, seem a virtual space alien to the locals, and know so little of the culture that she couldn´t really talk to people. She would have her laptop, though, so she could read Salon.

The dinosaur media lose out to the internet because they not only don´t want to but can´t deal with things that most stir the populace: race, wars, guns, abortion, separation of church and state, evolution, immigration. The velvet noose of political correctness ensures that only Appropriate Thought can be published. Those who deviate will be fired.

If you deal in opinion, you have to avoid upsetting the editor, the advertisers, your colleagues, the victim groups, and above all be politically correct. In columnists, papers want slot-fillers—the female liberal, female conservative, black liberal, and so on—who can be relied on not to say anything unexpected or controversial. Editors want adventure without danger. Thus the rule for an aspiring columnist for print publications is to choose a spot on the political spectrum and never deviate from it, even though he knows that much of it is nonsense. This keeps columnists boring.

It also creates huge openings for writers on the web. No paper on the planet would publish Fred on Everything, which means that it has no organized competition. Yet I have far more circulation than I did in what I once thought of as serious journalism. And this is why you can find better, more expert, and more thoughtful commentary on line than in the (as we say) Major Media.

And of course micropublications can afford to be as specialized as they choose in point of view, subject matter, and level of intelligence. A micropub doesn´t have to sacrifice quality of content to maximization of circulation to keep advertisers happy.

And so the bright drift to the web, leaving newspapers to clippers of grocery coupons and television to the semiliterate and below. It isn´t universal, but it is the trend line. The majors have a product with all the flavor of wallpaper paste and, now, a busted monopoly. Any mutt in Mexico with a computer and time on his hands can play Clark Kent, and it really is  the Daily Planet since that´s where people can read his outflow. My oh my.

SOURCE





Old Cancer-Sick Fan Rejected at Legoland Because He Didn't Bring a Kid

Discrimination?

This is 63-year-old John St-Onge, a man who became a devoted Lego fan playing with his children many decades ago. Sick with cancer and diabetes, John and his now-adult daughter Nicole went to fulfill a dream: to visit Legoland Discovery Center in Toronto. He was denied entry.

Legoland employees told them that he couldn't get in because he didn't have any kids with him. The park cited child protection policies that prevent adults to get alone inside, stupidly implying that he—or any adult Lego fan—may be some kind of sexual predator. And they did so even while he was visiting the park with his daughter, who later said her dad was devastated by the rejection.

The whole episode is terribly unjust and sad. Lego is a company that appeals to everyone, from one- to 100-year-old people. And the park's direction is very aware that adult Lego fans are some of the company's highest spending clients. We love their product with a passion.

What's really weird is that I've been alone in the mothership's Legoland when I was a 36-year-old man, with no special press badge. I spent hours there and nobody batted an eyelid. John's episode doesn't make any sense.

Yet, in Legoland Discovery Centers—you can see part of the one in Westchester, New York in this image—adults can't get in to see the models. Apparently, that's the rule and there's no exceptions. Not even for cancer patients.

Sadly, John's too sick to travel to a big Legoland park. His dream was to go to the one next to the mothership, in Billund, Denmark. Perhaps Legoland should make an exception in some extreme cases like his.

Update:

Toronto's Legoland Discovery Center has published this in its Facebook page:

Thank you for all of your feedback in relation to our adult policy. All comments have been directed to the appropriate members of the extended team. We have been speaking with John and his daughter directly and can confirm that John is very much looking forward to his forthcoming visit to LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Toronto, where he will enjoy one of our regular adult evening events. We look forward to welcoming him back soon.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

BBC attacks Humphrys for telling the truth on welfare: Corporation bosses accused of Left-wing bias after criticising respected Today presenter

The BBC was accused of ‘blatant Left-wing bias’ after bosses attacked one of their most respected journalists for a programme exposing the truth about the bloated welfare state.

The BBC Trust concluded that the TV show examining the Government’s welfare reforms, written and fronted by Radio 4 Today presenter John Humphrys, breached rules on impartiality and accuracy.

The ruling criticised the programme for suggesting the welfare state was in crisis and that there was a dependency culture in which some claimants preferred life on benefits to working.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith reacted angrily to the ruling, telling the Daily Mail last night that the programme had been ‘thoughtful’ and ‘intelligent’.

He contrasted it to most of the corporation’s ‘biased’ and negative coverage of his attempts to cut the benefits bill, the subject of frequent complaints by the Government.

The programme, The Future of the Welfare State, featured Mr Humphrys going back to his working-class birthplace in Cardiff, where one in four working-age people is on some form of welfare handout.

The BBC2 production suggested Britain was going through an ‘age of entitlement’, and featured claimants, including a couple on £1,600 of benefits a month, who thought ‘living on benefits an acceptable lifestyle’.

In a newspaper article to accompany the programme, Mr Humphrys wrote about evidence of a ‘dependency culture that has grown steadily over the past year’ and a ‘sense that the State owes us a living’.

But following a complaint from a poverty charity and an unnamed individual, the BBC Trust launched an inquiry into the documentary.

The Trust, which governs the broadcaster, chided the programme-makers for not backing up assertions with statistics.

It complained that viewers would have concluded that the Government was targeting benefits that were responsible for leaving the ‘welfare state in crisis’ and creating the impression that ‘despite the anecdotal testimonies of jobseekers heard in the programme that there was [a] healthy supply of jobs’ that claimants could have taken.

The Trust warned that ‘judgments reached or observations made are still required to be based on the evidence and should not give the appearance of presenting a personal view on a controversial subject’.

Its report claimed that because of ‘the absence of sufficient complementary statistical information to underpin contributors’ accounts, viewers were left unable to reach an informed opinion and the accuracy guidelines had been breached’.

Mr Duncan Smith condemned the ruling, complaining about the corporation’s coverage of a court ruling yesterday against opponents of cuts to housing benefit to people in social housing with spare bedrooms.

Coalition MPs were dismayed when the BBC devoted almost half an hour of a radio phone-in programme with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to complaints about what Labour has misleadingly called a ‘bedroom tax’.

Presenters read out messages from listeners saying Mr Clegg was ‘finished as an MP’ and condemning the coalition as a ‘betrayal’, and put through a caller who asked how he slept at night.

The Work and Pensions Secretary said: ‘We are now in the disappointing position where we are frequently compelled to complain to the BBC about the biased nature of their reporting of government reforms.

‘Watching the reporting today about the Government winning a High Court judgment on the spare room subsidy has once again left me absolutely staggered at the blatant Left-wing bias within the coverage.

'It was as if the BBC thought the High Court had made a terrible decision, instead of effectively upholding the status quo. It’s almost an insult to the courts.

‘And yet here we have the BBC Trust criticising John Humphrys – one of the organisation’s most lauded and respected journalists.

'I watched John’s programme and found it to be thoughtful, intelligent and quite clearly borne out of the real-life experience of the individuals he encountered.

‘John is undoubtedly a robust broadcaster, as I have encountered many times myself, and I don’t know anybody who thinks he is in any way biased.’

A BBC Trust spokesman said: ‘A number of allegations were made about the programme, and we have not upheld all of these. We have not upheld a complaint suggesting John Humphrys was personally conflating opinion with objective facts.

‘The Trust considers each complaint with considerable care and on the basis of what was broadcast. In this case we found no evidence that The Future State of Welfare was advocating government reforms and we judged John Humphrys’ presentation to have been based on professional judgment, not personal opinion.

‘Although we found that the programme did include an appropriately wide range of voices, some statistics were omitted which we believed ought to have been included to help viewers to reach an informed opinion.’

The spokesman added: ‘We are satisfied that our coverage of today’s housing benefit ruling was fair, balanced and impartial.’

SOURCE





Stay-at-home mothers are the happiest: Women who don't return to work suffer less from feelings of boredom and worthlessness

Stay-at-home mothers are more likely to think their lives are worthwhile than women who go to work, a study of national happiness suggests.

They tend not to suffer from boredom, frustration or feelings of worthlessness, according to the research on Britain’s wellbeing.

Full-time mothers gave the value of their lives a score of eight out of ten, compared to 7.8 for people in work.

Data also revealed that married people are significantly more contented than cohabitees and much happier than single or divorced people.

The findings will add further pressure on the Government to change the treatment of married couples where only one partner works. Couples with a full-time mother pay higher taxes in Britain than in almost every other western country and lose out badly in the benefits system, particularly over tax credits.

And the Coalition’s drive to get more mothers to work has produced even more disadvantages. Under a new policy, parents will be given up to £1,200 a year for each child under the age of five to help with the cost of childcare – but only if both parents are in work.

Yesterday’s report from the Office for National Statistics on personal well-being, ordered by David Cameron, looked at the happiness of people who are economically inactive – the class into which full-time mothers fall.

While those who stay at home scored the worth of their lives higher than those who go to work, scores for happiness, life satisfaction and anxiety levels were broadly the same.

The ONS figures do not include a breakdown that reveals whether men or women at work are the happier. Nor is there any data to show the difference in contentment between full-time mothers who are married or cohabiting, and those who are single parents.

But the findings do show that married people and cohabitees are much happier than single people – which suggests that married or cohabiting stay-at-home mothers feel their lives are more worthwhile than working people.

The official endorsement of the benefits of marriage over other relationships comes at a time when Mr Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne have failed to make good on repeated promises to bring in a tax break for married couples.

Campaigner Laura Perrins, who earlier this year accused Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on his radio programme of betraying stay-at-home mothers, yesterday made a fresh call for an end to Government ‘prejudice’.

‘I speak as a stay-at-home mother,’ she said. ‘I know that if you choose to stay at home with your children it is a worthwhile job. It is now clear that many mothers feel the same. The Government should not be denigrating those who stay at home.

‘Being a full-time mother can be challenging, but it is satisfying and worthwhile. It is obvious that all mothers do not want to work.’

Patricia Morgan, an author on family issues, added: ‘If we really want to take happiness seriously, as Mr Cameron advises, why don’t we promote the things that make us happy? Why can’t we support marriage, and why can’t we give married couples transferable tax allowances to help stay-at-home mothers?’

The findings are based on a survey of around 165,000 people, who were asked how satisfied, worthwhile, happy or anxious they felt about their lives.

A total of 77 per cent gave their satisfaction levels at least seven out of 10 – a year-on-year rise of 1.2 per cent. Some 81 per cent rated their lives as worthwhile with a score of seven or more, while the average value for life satisfaction rose from 7.4 to 7.5.

The ONS said last year’s Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Olympics and Paralympics may also have raised peoples’ spirits.

‘All of those could potentially have influenced people’s assessment of how well their life is going and how they feel overall and generally raise their spirits,’ said spokesman Dawn Snape.

Unemployment has also been falling since late 2011 and job vacancies rising since early 2012.

The well-being measures have shown that unemployment is a major cause of disenchantment and unhappiness.

SOURCE






British police won't hand stolen caravan back to couple to protect human rights of the travellers living in it

A couple whose £30,000 caravan was stolen have been told a traveller family now living in it cannot be removed because it would breach their human rights.

Kathleen McClelland and her partner Michael Curry spent their life savings on the top-of-the-range camper and were devastated when it vanished from the secure site where they kept it.

When police eventually found the 26ft-long Bailey Louisiana caravan 18 months later, its owners were told a traveller couple and their two young children were living in it only ten miles from their home in Surrey.

Their initial relief turned to outrage, however, when the police said they had ‘no lawful powers’ to get it back.

They were told their only option was to begin costly civil proceedings against the family, which they say they cannot afford.

Mrs McClelland and Mr Curry had spent £10,000 improving the £20,000 caravan, including putting in a widescreen TV. They bought the vehicle on hire purchase – and still have to make monthly payments of £250 for the next two years.

Hospital ward clerk Mrs McClelland, 68, said: ‘Why should we have to pay for someone else to live in our brand new caravan? That was for our pleasure in our older years.

‘The police said that removing the family would breach their human rights and that they would have to be rehoused before it could be seized. We spent all our retirement money on that caravan because we thought it would last us a lifetime. We’re absolutely devastated. It seems as though no one cares about our human rights.

‘I’ve worked all my life and saved up, surely I have the right to enjoy my retirement? When that caravan was stolen, our right to a happy retirement was stolen.’

The couple, who live in a semi-detached home in Tongham, Surrey, were in between insurance policies at the time of the theft in 2011 so were not covered for a payout.

In an apologetic letter, PC Karen East of Hampshire Constabulary told them the matter was out of the force’s hands. It read: ‘Unfortunately it has transpired that we have no lawful power to recover the caravan. It will be the responsibility of you as the owner to start civil proceedings against the current occupier.’

The letter added: ‘I sincerely apologise for this decision and I am sure that you feel the onus has been put back to you but my hands have been tied due to police powers.’

Last September police located and identified the caravan in Hook, Hampshire, after interviewing a suspect for an unrelated offence. But because officers did not have evidence that the current occupier knew the caravan was stolen when he allegedly purchased it, he could not be prosecuted and the force said it was unable to seize it.

Mr Curry, 53, who gave up his job as an HGV driver after being diagnosed with diabetes, said the police refused to reveal the caravan’s exact location.

‘I just cannot comprehend it,’ he said. ‘If I was stopped by the police and it turned out my car, which I had brought in good faith, was stolen, it would be confiscated and I would lose my money.’

Mr Curry said they bought the caravan in 2007 and would use it for family weekends away in Cornwall, Cumbria, Scotland and the south coast. It was stolen from a secure storage site in Crookham, Hampshire, after thieves disabled the alarm and cut through a wheel clamp and lock.

When the caravan was eventually found the couple were asked to provide proof of ownership, a logbook and photos.

They learned that the family found living in the caravan had taken it all over the country before temporarily settling down ten miles away from them.

Mr Curry said: ‘Apparently they had a receipt for it and had paid a guy £300 in a pub for it.  ‘They had no proof apart from a handwritten note on a scrap of paper, while we had everything proving it was ours. If they wanted a caravan, why not save up for it like we did?

‘I have lost all faith in the police. It seems that they have completely let us down and turned their backs on us.’

A Hampshire Police spokesman said: ‘A 22-year-old man from Hook was arrested and interviewed on suspicion of theft, however there was insufficient evidence to prove he had been involved in the theft, or would have known the caravan was stolen when he bought it. He was released with no further action.

‘We have no police powers to seize the caravan and have advised the owners to seek civil action in order to recover it.’

SOURCE





Australia:  Court-ordered parole, suspended sentences may be dumped as Qld.  gets tough on criminals

CRIMINALS currently walking free from court face being sent to jail and others locked up for longer amid Government concerns crooks are being let out too early.

Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie told The Courier-Mail offenders who made no attempt to rehabilitate were being released, and he was not afraid to change the law to better protect the community.

The Government is looking at dumping court-ordered parole and suspended jail sentences which would see Queensland's prison population of about 6000 almost certainly increase.

Mr Bleijie said offenders were being given too many chances and judges could soon lose the power to decide when criminals are released from jail.

Highly placed sources told The Courier-Mail that the Attorney-General had lost faith in court-ordered parole, suspended sentences and the system's ability to deal with recidivist offenders.

Of the 53,952 prisoners sentenced in Queensland courts in the past three years, more than 41,000 received a wholly suspended jail sentence or received court-ordered parole.

Mr Bleijie admitted there were problems with the system.

"I am certainly questioning whether court-ordered parole and suspended sentences still have a place in our legal system," he said.

"I'm well aware of concern and anger in the community over offenders committing more crimes after either walking straight from court or getting let out of jail on court ordered parole."

Privately, prison boards and police have lamented the fact they have to release some prisoners into the community on court-ordered parole.

Sources say a 25-year-old man went from "maximum security to the street" this year, despite Corrective Services staff and the Parole Board believing he should not be released on the parole date set by a judge. Within a week of being released, the Gold Coast bikie was charged with allegedly firing a gun inside a taxi, attacking two drivers and a police officer.

Court-ordered parole is a release date set during sentencing by the sentencing judge. It can include immediate parole, which means an offender is sentenced but walks free straight away.

Under the current system, the Parole Board has no say on an offender's release if they are on court-ordered parole unless they commit a criminal offence in jail or there is an imminent risk.

Criminals aged between 18-24 years are causing the greatest headaches for policy makers, with internal Corrective Service statistics revealing 70 per cent of the cohort will return to jail at least one more time before they reach 35 years.

About 300 offenders a month are suspended and returned to prison for breaching their parole. In 2011-2012, the two regional Parole Boards suspended or cancelled 3548 court-ordered parole orders because offenders committed another offence or breached their parole orders.

Mr Bleijie said some offenders knew how to work the system. "For some, court-ordered parole means they just have to wait their sentence out, without even trying to rehabilitate themselves," he said.

"If offenders were only eligible for parole and had to prove themselves to the Parole Board, it might motivate them to rehabilitate and change their offending behaviour.

"We're committed to getting tough on crime and people who think they can get away with repeatedly thumbing their nose at the law.

"We are not afraid to change laws if they will better protect the community."

Queensland Council for Civil Liberties vice-president Terry O'Gorman disputed Mr Bleijie's claim court-ordered parole was not working and asked how the Attorney-General would know given he scrapped the Sentence Advisory Council.

"The more you say no more second chances the more you push up recidivism," Mr O'Gorman said.

He predicted the judiciary would not be happy about any moves to limit their sentencing options.

Police Union president Ian Leavers said the Parole Board should be able to overrule a

court-ordered parole date if they thought a criminal should remain in prison.

"(It should be) until the Parole Board is satisfied they should be released or until they've served their full sentence, whatever comes first," Mr Leavers said.

Yesterday, Mr Bleijie ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal against the sentences of three young offenders, aged 16, 15, and 12, who took part in a violent crime spree on the Gold Coast last year.

The 15 and 16-year-olds, who committed robberies, received two years probation and 40 hours community service. The 16-year-old driver received 18 months probation and was disqualified from driving for six months. No convictions were recorded.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

An Imaginary Village invented by Real Bigots

Just as a unicorn is a legendary creature existing only in fairy stories, so are many ‘Palestinian’ villages. But this reality doesn’t stop malign agenda-driven groups from using fantasy as a stick with which to beat Israel, and in the process pulling the wool over the eyes of many well-intentioned, but naïve and uninformed, people.

Prime examples of two such groups are Australian Friends of Palestine and GetUp. So it comes as no surprise that the former used the vehicle of GetUp to petition Foreign Minister Carr – himself no great supporter of Israel – to help save a village they falsely claim belonged to Palestinians from time immemorial.

The Petition claims:

    “The Israeli Civil Administration in the Occupied West Bank of Palestine has distributed maps of locations /areas in Susiya, near Hebron in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Fifty one (51) structures are included indicating that demolition is likely to occur in the very near future, the exact date to depend on the result of an appeal to the courts. If demolition takes place, not only it will more than 100 people be displaced and made homeless, but community buildings funded through international aid programmes, may be demolished. These include a clinic funded by Action Aid Australia, as well as solar panels, shop, a community center, a structure used to store sheep’s milk prior to sale, granaries and shelters for sheep and chickens.”

The source for their information is B’tselem, which, under the guise of human rights, uses foreign government funding to advance their political agenda, thereby undermining the democratic process. For example, in 2011, 72% of donations to B’Tselem came from foreign government entities.

Naftali Balanson, of NGO Monitor reports:

    ”These political NGOs are also active in promoting false allegations of “war crimes” and “racial discrimination,” which are uncritically repeated by the international media, European diplomats, and UN officials, as part of demonization campaigns…Israeli NGOs also benefit from the misleading label of “civil society” groups in order to advance the Durban Strategy based on delegitimisation campaigns targeting Israel. As with the Goldstone report, the Israeli NGO network was central in the UN’s politicized report on settlements.”

Journalist Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu writes

    “The latest chapter in the Palestinian Authority’s re-invention of history is taking place in Susiya … less than half an hour from Be’er Sheva, the capital of the Negev.

    The Arab strategy: An Arab family erects a tent, illegally, near the archaeological site of the ancient town of Susiya. As time passes, the tent becomes a makeshift structure, which expands into several structures. With the support of extreme left-wing activists, the ‘ancient’ town of ‘Palestinian Susiya’ is invented. This makes for a great human interest story, but for one setback – the ‘ancient Palestinian Susiya’ never existed. It shows up on no records.”

Until 1983, when Jews returned to the area after a 1,500 year exile, none of the land in the area was registered as owned by anyone. Nor, when the Jews established Susiya, did Arabs live there or in the ruins of the old Jewish city of Susiya, uninhabited since the 6th century. It was only when the Civil Lands Authority issued stop-work orders against projects funded by the EU intended to support Palestinian Authority claims to land where they never lived, that the left-wing movements and the Palestinian Authority reinvented history, claiming-

    “The Palestinian village of Khirbet [ruins of] Susiya has existed in the South Hebron Hills at least since the 1830.”

The International Solidarity Movement claims:  “The residents of Susiya include more than 30 families, who were all evacuated from their homes in the old Susiya village and forced to relocate 200 meters to the southeast, in 1986,”

It is a lie. They never lived there, not in 1830 and not in 1986 and not in 1996.

More HERE





Pakistani racism in England


Pakistani Ahmed

An Asian amateur footballer has been sent to prison for subjecting a referee to a 20-minute racist rant as he was being sent off.   Wasar Ahmed, 23, told Ian Fraser: ‘I’m going to break every white bone in your white face.’

As other players and spectators looked on in shock, Ahmed raged: ‘I’m going to burn your white house down and kill your wife and kids – I know where you live. I’m going to come and find your house.’

After the game finished, Ahmed stood near to Mr Fraser’s car and stared at him as he got in.

He was arrested soon after when the referee, who has 30 years' experience in officiating at matches, went to a police station and made a formal complaint to officers and the East Lancashire Football League.

Mr Fraser, 48, told police he had 'never known anything like it before, felt intimidated and was left extremely shocked.'  He said he feared further trouble because of the threats.

At Burnley Crown Court, jobless Ahmed, from Burnley, admitted causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress and was jailed for eight weeks after a judge said referees were entitled to protection from badly behaved footballers.

After the case Mr Fraser, a father-of-two, of Barrowford, Lancashire, said: 'I think this sentence has to be a deterrent to other sports people who abuse match referees and then assume they can get away with it.

'I am very thick-skinned but there was no way anyone could tolerate this - especially when someone launched into the threats he made against me and my family.

'Someone having a verbal attack at me is normally off the cuff but this went on for so long and it was coming from a young lad who was vile in what he was saying. I just can’t believe he would go to such length all for a game of football.

'I have been refereeing since I was 16 and I’ve played an awful lot of football but I’ve never heard anything as bad as what he was saying. 'Referees should be respected but if people see the Premier League players swearing at referees then it cascades down to matches at amateur level likes ours.'

The incident took place last December when Mr Fraser was referring a match between Daneshouse FC and Prairie Utd.  Striker Ahmed, who played for Daneshouse, became angry when he felt Mr Fraser should have acted over a throw-in during the match.

The referee, who was being paid £22 to referee the match, asked him for his name.  But Ahmed refused and swore again instead calling him 'mother f**ker' and telling him to 'f**k off.'

In court Miss Silvia Dacre, prosecuting, said Mr Fraser had to get Ahmed’s name from his team manager, after refusing to re-start the match until he was given it.  She said Ahmed remained on the edge of the pitch and threatened Mr Fraser who said the game would not start again until the player was removed.

Ahmed later said he could not remember exactly what he said but admitted he had lost his temper.

It was also revealed he was in breach of a 32 weeks suspended prison term for assault.

Defence lawyer Richard Taylor said: 'The defendant doesn’t dispute that he lost it. He was upset and frustrated and says he had let his team mates down. He was very sorry and he regretted that.  'He accepts that his behaviour was very poor - but I do believe he’s learned his lesson.'

Judge Graham Knowles QC told Ahmed: 'This was a quite outrageous, deeply offensive profoundly unpleasant attack on a man who was just doing his best as a referee. He and others are entitled to protection.

'This incident went on for 20 minutes or so and you had opportunities to calm down and at the very least not make things worse - but you made it worse.'

Ken Inkle, chairman of the East Lancashire Football League, added: 'I can’t remember any incident like this ever taking place on the pitch in our league. Daneshouse FC have now withdrawn from the league, which was probably for the best.'

SOURCE






The decayed standards of modern life in Britain

Ambulance services have 'blacklisted' certain households and paramedics are told to wait outside until police turn-up if they fear they will be attacked.

The London Ambulance Service has a register of 226 addresses where staff are believed to be at risk of physical violence while the North East has a list of 236 properties.

Greater Manchester Ambulance service confirmed it had a similar register - although it couldn't confirm numbers - and West Midlands said there were some cases where police back-up would be sent.

Campaigners said the inhabitants only had themselves to blame if their health deteriorated while ambulances waited outside.

But there are concerns that children and other innocent patients living at the addresses who needed urgent medical help could be put at risk.

John Lister, of London Health Emergency, which campaigns against hospital closure and for improved NHS care said: 'I don't think it's fair for people to abuse ambulance workers.  'If there is a record of that I don't see any reason not to take it seriously.

'There is a risk that patient's care is being affected by the people in the building, but then why should we expect ambulance staff to put themselves at risk?

'If there are 200 addresses in London then it doesn't sound like it is a widespread problem.

'The ambulance staff take a lot of chances for us generally and I don't see any reason not to believe them if they say there is a problem.'

Figures obtained from a Freedom of Information request showed that London Ambulance Service have 226 addresses on their 'at risk' register of which 32 are in Leytonstone, East London. [A minority area]

The North East Ambulance Service has previously said it has 236 homes on a similar list where ambulances will not attend without police back-up.

Athar Khan, operations manager at the London Ambulance Service , said: 'It alerts the staff before they get to the address of the risk factors and actions they might need to take.

'We take things into consideration. The address, the name of the individual and the physical location.

'The diagnosis given in terms of illness and the access to that property whether we can get in quickly and get out quickly.'

Figures show that around 163 staff across the NHS are attacked by patients or relatives every day.

There are now around 60,000 assaults a day, a three per cent increase on the previous 12 months.

Paramedic Leo Nakhimoff was hit in the head and arm with a fence panel, after he and two colleagues went to treat a drunk patient who had collapsed in a relative's garden, in January last year.

He said police officers who were called to help were attacked and injured, along with another paramedic.

'When you're going about your daily job treating patients you don't expect to get attacked with a fence post - it was completely unprovoked.' He said.

'It affected me quite badly at the time and I questioned whether I wanted to continue working as a paramedic. It's now at the back of my mind when I get called to similar incidents.

'At the end of the day, we're here to help people and we don't want to be in fear of being attacked.'

SOURCE







MEDIA LEAVES OUT ONE IMPORTANT POLITICALLY INCORRECT FACT ABOUT DETROIT



Detroit recently became the largest city in American history to declare bankruptcy. The production envy of the world a mere 50 years ago, Detroit has become a dying, fourth-world hellhole. There are many reasons being bandied about by talking heads and propagandists in the mainstream media for Detroit’s collapse. They always leave out one politically incorrect fact.

Predictably and laughably, liberals are blaming conservative governance in Detroit even though Detroit has not had conservative leadership since Jimmy Hoffa was getting fitted for his concrete shoes. On the other side, conservatives are blaming liberal, big-government policies for Detroit’s bankruptcy. While liberals are completely wrong, as usual, conservatives don’t have the guts to tell the rest of the story about Detroit’s 50 year collapse. Why? Because most conservatives are self-incarcerated in the prison of political correctness and have not the fortitude to break the chains that silence them from speaking the entire truth.

So what is the truth about Detroit that has conservatives petrified to mention? Detroit is 82.7% black and, since 1967 has elected radical, anti-white, corrupt leaders. Blacks in Detroit, like blacks in America, are far below normal achievement measurements while committing out-of-control crimes.

George Will came close to breaking his PC chains today on ABC’s This Week show when he said:

“Can’t solve the problems because the problems are cultural. You have a city, 139 square miles. You can graze cattle in vast portions of it. Dangerous herds of feral dogs roam in there. You have 3 percent of fourth graders reading at the national math standards. Forty-seven percent of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate. Seventy-nine percent of Detroit children are born to unmarried mothers. They don’t have a fiscal problem, Steve. They have a cultural collapse.”

Say it, George! Come on, I dare you! Who has a cultural collapse? Which culture? Must be the 7% cracka population.

And as expected, liberals immediately feigned shock and offense that Will even hinted that black voters are responsible for electing corrupt black leaders who have killed Detroit over the past 50 years. Libtard extraordinaire Kathleen vanden Heuvel said:

“I find that really insulting to the people of Detroit. I think there’s a serious discussion about the future of cities in a time of deindustrialization. But in many ways, Detroit has been a victim of market forces, and I think what Steve [Ratner] said is so critical. Retirees and workers should not bear this. And it should not be about greedy public unions and fiscal responsibility.”

Oh no! Let’s not insult the morons who elected white-hating, corrupt morons by telling the truth about their moronic actions! Why, that’s racist!

Let’s face it, Detroit is bankrupt and destroyed because producers (mostly white) started the exodus from Detroit after the 1967 race riots when they saw they were no longer welcome or safe there. Generation after generation of black corruptocrats were elected by black government dependents and took their piece of the Detroit pie before going off to prison. Businesses left after they found they couldn’t hire productive employees. To be fair, offshoring of jobs didn’t help Detroit but blame that on corrupt labor unions. Those people called “workers” could be found in other states and countries where businesses didn’t have the same stifling government and union restrictions placed on them. Labor unions are just as dangerous as big government. Both are the creation of corrupt liberals.

The majority of the residents in Detroit are pitiful and pathetic. Completely at the mercy and dependence of producers. How can any city expect prosperity when half the adult population is illiterate? Here’s what happens:

There are many liberal cities in America who don’t come close to the fiscal malfeasance, crime, violence, etc of Detroit. Madison, Wisconsin, Austin, Texas, Pittsburg, PA to name a few. So it’s not all liberal cities that are collapsing. Just those with a majority black population. But because conservatives refuse to speak the entire truth, one has to look to blogs for the truth. But that’s nothing new.

Black people in Detroit will never better their surroundings as long as the government is there to ensure their sustenance through welfare, food stamps, Section 8, etc. Americans, all Americans, must be allowed to work or starve again. Fear and hunger is a fantastic motivator. Government programs have imprisoned much of black America and sapped their ambition, self-pride, self-reliance, responsibility, while destroying the black family. The results are as ugly as they were predictable.

There is no shame in being born into poverty but there should be great shame in not working to move out of it. Government welfare programs will not raise anyone from poverty but will chain them there. There is not one thing wrong in working in fast-food or cleaning. If one works hard, they will eventually move to the next level. Sure, they may never be rich (or they may be) but they will have the pride of knowing they have made it on their own.

Black people in Detroit will never better themselves while they are protected by the shield of political correctness. The PC concept that black people can never be criticized for any reason is ridiculously stupid. And dangerous. The people of Detroit should elect leaders who will look around and ask how Detroit got to where it is now? They must question what must be done to rise above it? And then they must, for the first time in the lives of many, start working on what will rebuild Detroit from the ashes of political correctness and liberal politics.

AWD has very little faith that this will happen because America under Obama is following the same path of Detroit. Liberals, nor Republicans (but I repeat myself), will ever shut off the spigot of Obama government money until there is none left to spread around. Then the rebuilding process can begin.

Big government and labor unions destroy everything they touch. Neither will be part of the equation that will return America to prosperity. Once both are dead and gone, Americans will return to doing what we do better than anyone in the world….create wealth.

And political correctness must be sent to the trash can of history….just like Detroit.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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