Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!
Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.
As a proud Latino professional and educator, I have always found the automatic, large minority support for the Democratic Party nauseating. After all, we have been told over and over that bias has its roots in assumptions, preconceptions, and stagnated beliefs.
History shows that, despite some exceptions, for the most part, Democratic candidates can expect large minority support thanks to a constellation of myths perpetuated by the liberal media and liberals themselves. These myths include the belief that Democrats care more about minorities’ needs than keeping minorities in their hip pocket when voting time comes. To the contrary, it has become fairly obvious that Democrats seek to perpetuate a dependent minority base and have no interest in helping that base become self-sufficient, independent, or successful. It is quite clear that Democrats have no interest in teaching anyone to fish but, rather, have every intention to keep providing fish so as to foster gratitude, dependence, and blind loyalty.
Imagine the outcry if a bumbling white leader had over 90% white support despite a downward spiral of ineptitude. The only thing we would hear is how racist such blind, obviously race-based, support would be. Turn the tables, have a Democratic side that not only enjoys widespread African-American support, but now increasingly seeks to spread its voting monopoly deeply into the Hispanic community, and one witnesses the usual hypocrisy so rampant on the Left and among its pet media.
Polls among African-Americans reveal an equally troubling dynamic among blacks regarding Obama. It seems that half of African-Americans are so steeped in delusional denial as to declare, with a straight face, that this Administration is doing well. While this blind loyalty in the face of contradictory evidence is to be expected, it does not speak well for the objectivity of those involved. If that blind allegiance is tragic, the justification of the other half of this voting base is downright pathetic. It seems that this other half does not even consider the issue of this Administration’s competence relevant, but is content that an African-American has even been elected and seeks to keep that dream alive regardless of the fallout.
Again, imagine the outcry if polls showed that a vast majority of whites mainly sought to keep the White House white. In fact, liberals wail on and on about how many whites blindly vote for white candidates simply to keep minorities out of power. Turn the tables and have most blacks still supporting a black leader despite considerable evidence of incompetence and these liberals have no problem with the situation.
The crux of racism is blindly supporting a person, cause or agenda based on racial preferences in the midst of contrary evidence. While the African-American community should certainly be proud of the fact that one of its own has in fact reached the top and use this fact as a motivation to greater success, it is certainly selling itself short by failing to rise above subjective, biased and, most destructively, oblivious support simply because of the color of a leader’s skin. The African-American and, for that matter, Hispanic and all other minority communities, deserve a lot more than such a superficial, biased, and utterly pathetic standard for its support.
The deadly combination of crafty liberal PR and pervasive liberal media hype and myth has perpetuated and almost institutionalized the lie that conservatives do not care about minorities and liberals spend every waking moment working for them. History, and the facts, however, tell a far different story to those with enough self-respect and intelligence to substantiate and validate their political support and loyalty through careful research and self-information.
Between Nancy Pelosi’s ringing endorsement of welfare as a social good and Obama’s stimulus people sending checks to the deceased and incarcerated, it has become painfully clear that the only political side even remotely interested in teaching people to fish is the conservative side. Liberals, on the other hand, seem only too content to continue patronizing dependence and selling fish at the same kind of discount that they believe America is worth. Perhaps sending this money to those now dead or in jail is simply another Democratic attempt to capture more voters, one way or the other.
Crooked British Muslim cop is made to pay just £750 of £64,500 trial costs... despite his THREE homes
Disgraced police chief Ali Dizaei was at the centre of a new storm last night after it emerged he has been forced to pay just £750 towards the prosecution costs of his corruption trial.
The Crown Prosecution Service had asked that three-times married Dizaei be ordered to pay their £64,500 bill for the four-week hearing earlier this year. But despite owning three homes worth a total of £1million, playboy Dizaei – who had expensive tastes in women, cars and clothes – said he was virtually penniless and able to pay only a tiny amount. After considering his case, Southwark Crown Court ordered that he pay £750 plus VAT towards the prosecution costs.
Yet the Mail can reveal that Dizaei owns homes in Acton and Chiswick in West London, and co-owns a property in Henley-on-Thames with his former wife Natalie.
Before his corruption conviction, Dizaei won a substantial five-figure libel payout from a Sunday newspaper. It is not known where the money went.
The decision to make the former Met Commander pay so little has staggered his former colleagues in the Metropolitan Police. One said: ‘A lot of people find it very hard to believe he is only worth £750. Many people will think he’s played the system and won.’
According to publicly available Land Registry documents, each of Dizaei’s homes is mortgaged. It is not known how much equity is in each.
Dizaei, 47, was jailed for four years in February for abusing his police position to bully a young businessman. He assaulted and falsely arrested Iraqi Waad al-Baghdadi, 24, after the businessman asked for £600 he was owed for creating a website showcasing Dizaei’s career.
He was sacked from his £90,000-a-year job at Scotland Yard in March but, despite his dismissal, will still be able to claim at least a third of his gold-plated police pension in the future.
A former president of the militant National Black Police Association, he has endured a torrid time since being jailed, including an attack in which he was knocked out and had a slop bucket poured over him.
The Iranian-born former officer, who spent thousands of pounds on a hair transplant, has also been goaded about the colour of his hair after it turned grey without lashings of black dye. Dizaei is now in Leyhill open prison in Gloucestershire.
In August, it emerged Dizaei plans to sue the prison service for failing to protect him from a brawl in which he allegedly attacked another cellmate at a previous jail in South Wales. He is demanding damages from prison authorities – even though he is being investigated by police for allegedly assaulting another inmate.
Southwark Court confirmed that Dizaei has been ordered to pay just £750 plus VAT for the prosecution costs of his trial. The CPS refused to comment.
Nutty British prisons boss says inmates should have choice of FIVE dishes for dinner
Prisoners must be given a choice of at least five different dishes for dinner, it emerged last night. Under new rules – quickly dubbed ‘Porridge à la Carte’ – inmates will be presented with a menu from which to select their desired meal from the five on offer.
Governors must change the menu regularly to ensure the same options do not appear more than once a month. The order dictating the changes even insists that prisoners are ‘consulted’ about the quality of meals served. Prisons minister Crispin Blunt, who previously gave the go-ahead for Halloween and Christmas parties for inmates, is responsible for prisoner food rules.
Critics described the regulations as ‘lunacy’. The rules, issued by the Ministry of Justice and sent to every jail in England and Wales, came into force on October 1 but were only published yesterday.
Diktats include that drug addicts trying to get clean should be given hot chocolate because it is ‘comforting’. New inmates must be given an arrival pack containing tea and coffee, sweets and cigarettes. And late arrivals – such as newly-sentenced prisoners – must be given a hot meal even if they arrive at the prison after all the other inmates have eaten.
Fiona McEvoy, campaign manager at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: ‘While many ordinary, law-abiding taxpayers struggle for cash and brace themselves for cuts in services, these convicts are getting five-star treatment on the public purse. ‘The amount of effort and planning going into these menus is just insulting – it seems criminals are being fed better than patients, school children and the elderly in many cases. ‘No one would deny inmates a decent meal, but this is just ridiculous.’
Tory MP Douglas Carswell added: ‘Surely we should be giving individual prison governors control over meals and letting them see what works and what gets results? ‘Why are we trying to micro-manage the prison service from the centre, right down to the amount of gravy and type of vegetables prisoners have for their meals? It’s lunacy.’
The edict follows a bizarre speech by Mr Blunt last month in which he said inmates should be served perfectly-sized and shaped apples to prevent ‘fruit riots’. He told the House of Commons that ‘undersize’ fruit handed out at jail canteens could create ‘issues of order and control’.
‘It is worth remembering that discontent about the quality of food, changes to menus and failure to deliver what was previously promised have been known to be the catalyst for serious disturbances,’ he said.
‘An undersize apple handed out at the servery will create issues of order and control, so we use suppliers that are sensitive to that need and that use their sourcing ability to maintain consistency from their supply base.’
Mr Blunt provoked outrage within weeks of his appointment by lifting a ban on taxpayer-funded prisoner parties and comedy workshops for high security inmates. The MP for Reigate – who is the uncle of actress Emily Blunt – was swiftly slapped down by Downing Street, and the decision reversed the following day. He was slapped down again after he said criminals could get their jail sentences slashed if they said sorry.
And there was further outrage when it emerged that newly-released prisoners are being offered free mobile phones in a taxpayer-funded ‘welcome pack’ when they arrive at bail hostels.
The ‘Catering – Meals for Prisoners’ section in Prison Service Instruction number 44/2010 states: ‘A multi-choice minimum five choices, pre-select menu including a minimum of one substantial hot meal choice per day will be provided for the lunch time or evening meal.’ Food must meet the ‘cultural, nutritional and diversity needs’ of inmates, the order states.
It adds: ‘The menu provides information which enables prisoners to make decisions about their menu choice. The menu cycle will be for a minimum of four weeks. ‘Prisoners are consulted about and can make comments on the catering provision.’ Officials said each menu would include a hot meal, a cold meal, a vegetarian option and one that is free of dairy products.
Every menu must also include a halal meal that complies with the Islamic code on how animals should be slaughtered.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘At a time when the Government is looking for ways to save money it’s quite extraordinary that the only people who look like they are going to be better off are prisoners. As far as I’m concerned it’s absolutely unacceptable and I think the public will be outraged.’
Although many prisons already offer a wide choice at mealtimes, it is thought to be the first time the five choices have been set in stone by ministers.
A Prison Service spokesman said: ‘The choice of meals that are available to prisoners reflect both religious and medical requirements, including halal, dairy free and vegetarian options. In practice this means a number of prisoners only have one choice.’
British school trips to be freed from health and safety red tape as Lord Young promises to roll back compensation culture
Red tape surrounding school trips is to be slashed as part of a Government drive to inject ‘common sense’ into Britain’s health and safety laws. Former Cabinet minister Lord Young said the regulation surrounding school trips was now so onerous that many teachers no longer bothered to organise them – leading millions of children to miss out on a vital part of their education.
Launching a Government report on health and safety laws today Lord Young criticised the ‘enormous bureaucracy’ currently surrounding school trips. He said ministers would cut back the 12-page risk assessment that currently has to be completed by teachers for each trip. Parents will also be able to sign a single consent form which covers a child’s entire time at the school, to prevent the wasteful practice of seeking consent for every visit.
Lord Young, who was appointed by David Cameron to roll back Britain’s compensation culture, said: ‘The simple truth is that filling in a form doesn’t make a trip more safe. ‘Children are potentially missing out on vital education because schools just do not have the time and resource to carry out the process. ‘If they do, they are too concerned about the threat of legal action should an accident happen.’
The report also calls for risk assessments of children’s play areas to consider the benefits of giving youngsters somewhere to play rather than focusing solely on the potential risks.
Lord Young said health and safety laws originally designed for dangerous industries were now being applied to a range of jobs and everyday activities that are ‘non-hazardous’.
He also hit out at no-win, no-fee lawyers for fuelling the compensation culture, saying: ‘I started out as a lawyer and I am frankly ashamed of some of the things that I have seen.’ The new report calls for a crackdown on adverts encouraging people to launch a compensation claim for even the most trivial accident.
Lord Young said the Government would ban the practice of law firms and claims handlers offering people up to £500 up front in return for lodging a compensation claim. Lord Young said the growth of the compensation culture led to higher insurance premiums for millions of businesses and individuals, and persuaded many organisations to adopt an unnecessarily risk-averse approach.
He said the insurance industry was also ‘part of the problem’. He added: ‘Businesses now operate their health and safety policies in a climate of fear. The advent of 'no win, no fee' claims and the all-pervasive advertising by claims management companies have significantly added to the belief that there is a nationwide compensation culture.’
Two years ago teachers at the John F. Kennedy Primary School in Washington, Tyne and Wear, scrapped the sports day sack race fearing children will fall over
The report ‘Common Sense, Common Safety’, which was accepted in its entirety by the Government, also calls for the introduction in law of a ‘Good Samaritan clause’ to make it clear that volunteers cannot be sued unless they have clearly acted recklessly or maliciously.
Lord Young said the move would prevent a repeat of the farce last winter when people were warned they could be sued for clearing the snow in front of their home if someone then slipped on the pavement.
A separate legislative move will make it clear that members of the emergency services will not risk prosecution on health and safety grounds in circumstances where they have acted heroically – a move immediately welcomed by the Association of Chief Police Officers.
The Prime Minister said he hoped Lord Young’s report would prove to be a ‘turning point’ which would ‘help stop the creep of unnecessary health and safety culture that we have’.
Other changes include requiring killjoy councils that want to ban community events such as pancake races to put their reasons in writing. Organisers will be able to challenge any ruling and councils could be fined if they are found to have acted wrongly.
A new fixed-cost system for resolving compensation in road traffic accidents will be extended to cover straightforward personal injury claims.
Simpler guidance on health and safety will be published for offices and other low-risk workplaces, and employers will not have to conduct a full health and safety assessment for staff who work from home.
Lord Young insisted that his reforms, which will be rolled out over the next 18 months, would have no impact on important health and safety laws in hazardous workplaces.
But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber described the report as a ‘grave disappointment’ which could throw safety improvements into reverse. Mr Barber said: ‘The report contains not a single proposal that will reduce the high levels of workplace death, injuries and illness.’
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.
Comment below by German economist Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich
This year’s Nobel prizes started promisingly enough: The literature prize was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa, who made the defence of individual liberty the theme of his work. Then the peace prize went to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiabao, who has had to pay a high personal price for his decades-long fight for political freedom in the one-party state.
The Nobel Prize in economics, however, left me somewhat puzzled. To be sure, the recipients Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen, and Christopher Pissarides are all highly respected economists. Their contributions to labour market theory have become part of textbook economics. In this sense, the prize is well deserved.
Having said that, awarding the prize to the trio also looks a bit like a safe choice. If the Nobel committee had wanted to set an exclamation mark with their decision, they could have honoured branches of economics they had hitherto neglected. For example, research into entrepreneurship is long overdue in terms of Nobel recognition, and someone like Israel M. Kirzner would have been a worthy recipient. No one has more elegantly formulated why and how entrepreneurs are the key figures in driving the competitive market economy and thus economic growth.
In another sense, too, the choice of the three labour market specialists is hardly revolutionary. Though their models are elegant, what they are actually saying is very much common sense. For example, their model shows that ‘more generous unemployment benefits give rise to higher unemployment and longer search times,’ the Nobel committee inform us in their press release. But does it surprise anyone that a life on benefits makes it less urgent to look for a job?
Even stranger, the Nobel laureates are happy to claim responsibility for labour market reforms that are widely regarded as failed. Pissarides says the ‘New Deal for Young People,’ a British government initiative aimed at getting 18- to 24-year-olds back on the job market after long spells of unemployment, ‘is very much based on our work.’ But, as a report by former British welfare reform minister Frank Field for London-based think tank Reform shows, the program was costly without actually bringing young jobseekers back into work. ‘The results of the New Deal for Young People have however been modest, to put it mildly,’ Field concluded.
To round off the oddities about this year’s prize, one of the laureates, Peter Diamond, had been nominated by President Obama for a seat on the board of the Federal Reserve. His nomination has been blocked, however, because Republican opponents have doubts about his qualifications for the job.
It seems the main purpose of this year’s prize is to underline that markets often do not work, in this case because of search costs in labour markets. But that such costs exist is hardly disputed.
It would have been more appropriate if the Nobel committee had honoured an economist who had made contributions to showing how markets work. Like Liu Xiabao, who was widely pipped to win the Nobel last year, Israel M. Kirzner may have to wait one more year.
The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 15 October. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.
As career criminals with 100 convictions are spared jail in Britain, MPs ask... What DOES get you locked up?
Thousands of career criminals are being spared jail despite having amassed at least 50 convictions. Almost 2,700 were handed a community sentence after being found guilty more than 50 times before. Incredibly, 315 offenders even received a non-custodial punishment after 100 or more previous offences.
The figures, seen by the Mail, also show more than 13,000 on at least their 30th offence received a community penalty – widely derided as ‘soft’ by critics. It means offenders who are convicted of 30 or more crimes are 1,000 times more likely to be given a community sentence or a fine than end up in prison.
MPs and experts said the alarming revelations showed why Kenneth Clarke should be imprisoning more convicts – not fewer. Criminologist Dr David Green, director of the Civitas think-tank, said even more prolific offenders could escape jail in future. ‘It’s all very well giving out community sentences for minor offences – but if you’re on your 101st conviction, then it’s evidence of being a career criminal,’ he added. ‘I would have thought a long custodial sentence would be appropriate for these people, who will have been committing crimes more or less every day for all their adult life. If they do allow career criminals to roam the streets, we can safely say there will be a rise in crime.’
Tory backbencher Philip Davies said: ‘These statistics show what a joke the criminal justice system has become. You have to work very hard to get into prison nowadays. ‘No wonder people have lost faith in the criminal justice system when we see people carrying out literally hundreds of crimes and getting off time and time again.’
But the Justice Secretary yesterday remained defiant over his plans to hand out community punishments rather than short jail terms. He said: ‘Simply banging up more and more people for longer without actively seeking to change them is not going to protect the public. I do not think prison is or should be a numbers game’.
The re-offending figures, which are for 2008, were revealed last week by Justice Minister Crispin Blunt following a parliamentary question. They show that the problem of repeat offending has been getting worse. In 2006, a total of 179 criminals were spared jail after 100 convictions – not much more than half of the 315 figure in 2008. And whereas in 2002 a total of 1,200 had 50 or more convictions, that had soared to 2,670 in 2008.
Some of the figures were published earlier this year, buried in an annex of a document of sentencing statistics. The Ministry of Justice document reveals that repeat offending is getting worse. The proportion of sentences given to offenders with 15 or more previous convictions or cautions has risen from 17 per cent in 2000 to 28 per cent in 2008.
Graham Jones, the Labour MP who asked the question, said: ‘These figures seem to show that the “prison doesn’t work” idea put forward by the Conservatives is wrong.’
Despite how hard it has become to earn a custodial sentence, Mr Clarke is still insisting there are too many convicts sent to jail for six months or less. He wants to replace these sentences – given to around 50,000 offenders each year – with ‘tougher community’ penalties.
Yesterday, he said: ‘The army of short term prisoners we have at the moment, who have a particularly bad record of re-offending within six months of being released, is too big and we’ve got to find some sensible community sentences.’
Governors say it will slash jail numbers by 7,000 at any one time – with some prisons closing because there are too few inmates.
The vast majority of those convicted of a range of offences are have been convicted of the same crime before.
Mr Clarke provoked anger among the Tory grassroots earlier this year by declaring that prison ‘doesn’t work’ – ripping up almost 20 years of party policy. But he has stuck doggedly to the position that short-jail sentences are ‘ineffective’ and ‘absurd’. He says that – with 60 per cent of jailed inmates re-offending on release – the system must be changed.
The government is carrying out a sentencing review, which is due to report back within weeks. It will rule out scrapping short sentences altogether. But community punishments are likely to be toughened by making offenders wear an electronic tag. Officials hope this will persuade magistrates to use the punishment instead of jail.
In yesterday’s speech to the Prison Governors Association, Mr Clarke reiterated his plan to encourage inmates to work a 40-hour week, in return for the minimum wage. He also said he wanted to modern versions of Victorian prisons with a new focus on hard work and discipline.
He also said he wanted an ‘intensive effort to start developing drug-free wings’ in prisons, getting inmates off drugs altogether, and wanted regimes which prepared prisoners for an ‘ordinary honest life outside’.
Only this week, we heard that judges and magistrates are being told to send fewer violent thugs to prison. Now those found guilty of actual, or even grievous, bodily harm will not be going to prison at all, particularly if they are young or express remorse.
Makes you wonder who we’ll be letting off next? Rapists? Murderers?
Ken Clarke, our new Justice Secretary, may have come to the highly convenient, money-saving conclusion that prison sentences do not reduce crime – which I don’t believe – but I’m more inclined to side with former Home Secretary Michael Howard and his famous ‘prison works’ speech.
It addressed the problems of criminals and criminality in a way that the latest milksop, so-called ‘community payback’, never will. A couple of weeks loafing around in high-visibility jackets? Oh yes, I’m quite sure that will get hardened criminals back on the straight and narrow, Mr Clarke.
At the grassroots level, the judicial system is a currently a mess, where something as serious as shoplifting can earn you an £80 fixed penalty fine, while dropping a cigarette butt can land you with a £1,000 fine.
It’s a world where the police keep telling us that crime is falling but only, I’m convinced, because they’re letting repeat young offenders off with warning after warning, caution after caution.
Sometimes I wonder why they don’t just raise the age of criminal responsibility to 20 and solve the whole problem of youth crime overnight.
Save us from red tape, beg British local councils: Labour issued 74,000 pages of rules in a decade
Local government bureaucrats have had to follow 74,000 pages of new rules and instructions handed down by Whitehall over the past decade, council chiefs complained yesterday. The forest of red tape was a product of 4,000 different laws and circulars covering everything from parish council election advice to carbon reduction targets.
The direct cost to taxpayers of demands sent down by ministers to town halls amounts to £900 million a year and the overall losses could be as high as £2.5 billion annually, the Local Government Association said. It demanded simplification of the rules that govern local councils and an end to central government guidelines that give detailed instructions on how town halls should carry out their duties.
According to a report published by the umbrella body for local councils, the burden has amounted to 40 pages of regulation for every day that Parliament has been sitting since 2000. The rules include 2,000 pages of planning guidance issued by John Prescott and other Labour ministers to try to impose national policies on housebuilding, development in green fields, and traveller sites.
There were 1,300 pages sent out last year in one manual from the Department of Work and Pensions instructing local officials how to pay out Housing Benefit.
And targets issued by the Communities Department in 2008 required town halls to increase the number of new businesses started in their area, cut the re-offending rates of local criminals, and get more people to stop smoking.
Even since May and the arrival of the Coalition government, councils have been given 1,355 pages of rules thanks to 67 new laws which have come into effect.
The page count produced a plea for mercy from LGA chairman Baroness Margaret Eaton. She said: ‘An avalanche of paperwork has descended on town halls across the country in the past decade. ‘There is no justification for the amount of form-filling, data returns, reviews and micromanagement being foisted on local government.
Red tape of this kind wastes valuable time and resources which councils need to spend delivering services.’
The Association appealed for instructions to councils on how to carry out their legal duties to be scrapped, for consolidation of local government laws into a simplified codebook, and for an end to demands for statistics and information on whether targets have been reached.
Lady Eaton said: ‘Councils are well aware of their responsiblities towards their residents. What they need are the freedoms which will allow them to make the money go further and do more for everyone.’
Ministers yesterday announced one cutback on red-tape with the withdrawal of 4,700 Whitehall targets set under the regulations on ‘Local Area Agreements’.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles also said central government demands for information would be simplified. He said: ‘National targets tend to mean that councils are constantly working on things which matter to Whitehall, regardless of what local residents think. I’d much rather councils were tackling local issues.
The money being spent on form fillers and bean counters could be far better spent helping elderly people to stay in their homes.’
Last night, Rupert Murdoch gave an extraordinary speech at an Anti-Defamation League dinner in which he revealed, yet again, that he is a true and selfless friend of the Jewish people and of Israel. Here is the text:
You [the ADL] were founded a century ago against the backdrop of something we cannot imagine in America today: the conviction and then lynching of an innocent Jew. In the century since then, you have fought anti-Semitism wherever you have found it. You have championed equal treatment for all races and creeds. And you have held America to her founding promise. So successful have you been, a few years ago some people were beginning to say, “maybe we don’t need an ADL anymore.” That is a much harder argument to make these days. Now, there’s not a single person in this room who needs a lecture on the evil of anti-Semitism. My own perspective is simple: We live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews. For the first decades after Israel’s founding, this war was conventional in nature. The goal was straightforward: to use military force to overrun Israel. Well before the Berlin Wall came down, that approach had clearly failed.
Then came phase two: terrorism. Terrorists targeted Israelis both home and abroad – from the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich to the second intifada. The terrorists continue to target Jews across the world. But they have not succeeded in bringing down the Israeli government – and they have not weakened Israeli resolve.
Now the war has entered a new phase. This is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimizing it. The battleground is everywhere: the media … multinational organizations … NGOs. In this war, the aim is to make Israel a pariah.
The result is the curious situation we have today: Israel becomes increasingly ostracized, while Iran – a nation that has made no secret of wishing Israel’s destruction – pursues nuclear weapons loudly, proudly, and without apparent fear of rebuke.
For me, this ongoing war is a fairly obvious fact of life. Every day, the citizens of the Jewish homeland defend themselves against armies of terrorists whose maps spell out the goal they have in mind: a Middle East without Israel. In Europe, Jewish populations increasingly find themselves targeted by people who share that goal. And in the United States, I fear that our foreign policy sometimes emboldens these extremists.
Tonight I’d like to speak about two things that worry me most. First is the disturbing new home that anti-Semitism has found in polite society – especially in Europe. Second is how violence and extremism are encouraged when the world sees Israel’s greatest ally distancing herself from the Jewish state.
When Americans think of anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century. Today it seems that the most virulent strains come from the left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel.
Back in 2002 the president of Harvard, Larry Summers, put it this way: “Where anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists, profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.”
Mr. Summers was speaking mostly about our university campuses. Like me, however, he was also struck by alarming developments in Europe. Far from being dismissed out of hand, anti-Semitism today enjoys support at both the highest and lowest reaches of European society – from its most elite politicians to its largely Muslim ghettoes. European Jews find themselves caught in this pincer.
We saw a recent outbreak when a European Commissioner trade minister declared that peace in the Middle East is impossible because of the Jewish lobby in America. Here’s how he put it: “There is indeed a belief—it’s difficult to describe it otherwise—among most Jews that they are right. And it’s not so much whether these are religious Jews or not. Lay Jews also share the same belief that they are right. So it is not easy to have, even with moderate Jews, a rational discussion about what is actually happening in the Middle East.”
This minister did not suggest the problem was any specific Israeli policy. The problem, as he defined it, is the nature of the Jews. Adding to the absurdity, this man then responded to his critics this way: Anti-Semitism, he asserted, “has no place in today’s world and is fundamentally against our European values.” Of course, he has kept his job.
Unfortunately, we see examples like this one all across Europe. Sweden, for example, has long been a synonym for liberal tolerance. Yet in one of Sweden’s largest cities, Jews report increasing examples of harassment. When an Israeli tennis team visited for a competition, it was greeted with riots. So how did the mayor respond? By equating Zionism with anti-Semitism – and suggesting that Swedish Jews would be safer in his town if they distanced themselves from Israeli actions in Gaza. You don’t have to look far for other danger signs:
The Norwegian government forbids a Norwegian-based, German shipbuilder from using its waters to test a submarine being built for the Israeli navy.
Britain and Spain are boycotting an OECD tourism meeting in Jerusalem.
In the Netherlands, police report a 50% increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents.
Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by these things. According to one infamous European poll a few years back, Europeans listed Israel ahead of Iran and North Korea as the greatest threat to world peace.
In Europe today, some of the most egregious attacks on Jewish people, Jewish symbols, and Jewish houses of worship have come from the Muslim population.
Unfortunately, far from making clear that such behavior will not be tolerated, too often the official response is what we’ve seen from the Swedish mayor – who suggested Jews and Israel were partly to blame themselves.
When Europe’s political leaders do not stand up to the thugs, they lend credence to the idea that Israel is the source of all the world’s problems – and they guarantee more ugliness. If that is not anti-Semitism, I don’t know what is.
That brings me to my second point: the importance of good relations between Israel and the United States. Some believe that if America wants to gain credibility in the Muslim world and advance the cause of peace, Washington needs to put some distance between itself and Israel. My view is the opposite. Far from making peace more possible, we are making hostilities more certain. Far from making things better for the Palestinian people, sour relations between the United States and Israel guarantees that ordinary Palestinians will continue to suffer.
The peace we all want will come when Israel feels secure – not when Washington feels distant.
Right now we have war. There are many people waging this war. Some blow up cafes. Some fire rockets into civilian areas. Some are pursuing nuclear arms. Some are fighting the soft war, through international boycotts and resolutions condemning Israel. All these people are watching the U.S.-Israeli relationship closely.
In this regard, I was pleased to hear the State Department’s spokesman clarify America’s position yesterday. He said that the United States recognizes “the special nature of the Israeli state. It is a state for the Jewish people.” This is an important message to send to the Middle East. When people see, for example, a Jewish prime minister treated badly by an American president, they see a more isolated Jewish state. That only encourages those who favor the gun over those who favor negotiation.
Ladies and gentlemen, back in 1937, a man named Vladimir Jabotinsky urged Britain to open up an escape route for Jews fleeing Europe. Only a Jewish homeland, he said, could protect European Jews from the coming calamity. In prophetic words, he described the problem this way: “It is not the anti-Semitism of men,” he said. “It is, above all, the anti-Semitism of things, the inherent xenophobia of the body social or the body economic under which we suffer.”
The world of 2010 is not the world of the 1930s. The threats Jews face today are different. But these threats are real. These threats are soaked in an ugly language familiar to anyone old enough to remember World War II. And these threats cannot be addressed until we see them for what they are: part of an ongoing war against the Jews.
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.
Bollywood film paints Australians as violent racists
This is what comes of political correctness. Ordinary Australians are being blamed for what are predominantly the deeds of African "refugees". Africans hate Indians because they are also coloured yet are much more successful in most ways than Africans are. But since about 2007 the Australian media have been very chary of mentioning the race of the attackers. A blanket of silence has descended. So most people would assume that the attackers were white. And on the rare occasion when the attacker is white THAT is mentioned, of course
A BOLLYWOOD blockbuster inspired by the violent attacks on Indian students in Australia has come under fire for producing "venom that's spewed against Australians".
Crook: it's Good to be Bad, tells the story of an Indian who moves to the Australian city of Melbourne and finds himself in the midst of race-motivated violence, the Herald Sun said.
In the film, Melbourne is depicted as a city rife with gang violence between Australians and Indians, while the locals are portrayed as beer-guzzling blokes and immoral women.
Indian critics have panned it for being sensationalist and its stereotyping of Australians. There was particular outrage against the inflammatory language made by the main character. "A country of ex-convicts. A country where they sleep with each other without marrying. A country where they don't take care of their families. Yes that's the sort of venom that's spewed against the Australians in Crook,'" an India Today reviewer wrote.
Last year, the Indian media heavily covered a series of violent assaults on Indian immigrants in Melbourne, including a 10-page special in Outlook magazine entitled "Why Aussies Hate Us".
Director Mohit Suri said he was inspired to make the film after visiting a convenience store in the western Melbourne suburb of Sunshine. "Inside the very same store one of the most brutal racist attacks had taken place just a few months back. The events as told to me were horrifying, about how an Indian was brutally beaten up only because of his colour and religion," he said in an interview with an Indian entertainment website.
The Progressive Movement is desperate. The 2008 election was supposed to be the dawn of a new liberal era. An enlightened bureaucratic elite in Washington was supposed to enact a broad and transformative agenda that would save the economy, return the nation to prosperity, and legitimize big government for a generation.
But only the enactment of the agenda occurred, without any of the promised benefits. President Obama’s trillion-dollar stimulus and trillion-dollar health care entitlement are now law. The leftist bureaucrats have been empowered … but their policies have failed. Health insurance premiums are rising, poverty is up, and the nation’s unemployment rate hovers near 10%.
Faced with the obvious failure of their policies, the left is now desperately seeking to avoid accountability by blaming others. So President Barack Obama told a crowd in Philadelphia this weekend that “special interest groups” like the Chamber of Commerce are “spending unlimited amounts of money on attack ads.” The President continued: “It could be the oil industry. It could be the insurance industry. It could even be foreign-owned corporations. You don’t know because they don’t have to disclose. … Now, that’s not just a threat to Democrats – that’s a threat to our democracy.”
The President may say he is only interested in disclosure, but his policy prescription does not accomplish that. When Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced the DISCLOSE Act to the Senate he gave away the real aim of the bill. “The deterrent effect should not be underestimated,” Schumer said. And just what does the left want to deter Americans from doing? At the House committee DISCLOSE Act markup, Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) said: “I have no problem whatsoever keeping everybody out [of elections]. If I could keep all outside entities out, I would.”
The President is not interested in educating the American people by making everyone disclose their donations. He is only interested in silencing his opponents. That is why unions were specifically exempted from the DISCLOSE Act as were a slew of other interest groups.
On Face the Nation this Sunday, CBS host Bob Schieffer confronted White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod about a New York Times article showing that White House charges of “secret foreign money” “stealing our democracy” were completely baseless. Schieffer asked: “If the only charge, three weeks into the election that the Democrats can make is that there’s somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?”
Axelrod went on to contend that it is the responsibility of those the White House accuses to prove they aren’t breaking the law. This morning, NBC’s Chuck Todd described Axelrod’s answer as “McCarthy-esque” on Daily Rundown.
Yes. Baseless charges about foreigners stealing democracy is the best the left can do. Their policies have completely failed and they are afraid of being held accountable. The President’s response is to try and use the power of the federal government to deter all dissent. If there is a threat to our democracy in this election, it is not coming from the Chamber of Commerce.
Send fewer thugs to jail and save £20m a year, British judges and JPs told
Judges and magistrates were yesterday ordered to send fewer violent thugs to jail. New guidelines mean those guilty of grievous bodily harm or beating up a police officer will remain on the streets rather than going to prison.
And courts will be told to count the youth or remorse of an attacker as a mark in their favour, even though many assaults happen when pubs and clubs close and are committed by young people.
The Sentencing Council believes its move could save almost £20million a year to the prison and probation services and mean 4,000 fewer violent yobs being sent to jail.
But it provoked a storm of protest last night and comes against a political backdrop of Justice Secretary Ken Clarke declaring he wants to reduce sharply the number of short term jail sentences.
Lord Justice Leveson, who is chairman of the council, said judges and magistrates have been ‘ignoring’ guidelines and setting longer sentences for lesser assaults. Despite insisting that ‘none of us is soft on crime’, he was forced to deny the judges have acted in league with Mr Clarke, who is committed to sending fewer offenders to prison.
He added: ‘If this works, there will be less use of custody.’ But critics said the thinking behind the policy was ‘dubious’ and could create ‘more crime and more victims’.
Criminologist Dr David Green, of the Civitas think tank, said: ‘I do not believe that any experienced judge would think that current sentencing practice is disproportionate. ‘When you make the consequences of crime less severe, you will get more of it.’
The new rules would mean fewer jail sentences for common assault, assault on a police officer, causing actual bodily harm and assault trying to resist arrest.
For grievous bodily harm, an assault causing permanent disability, disfigurement, broken bones or injuries requiring lengthy treatment, attackers will not go to jail if they are considered to have factors in their favour. These include youth or immaturity, showing remorse, and causing the injury with a single blow.
The council’s guidelines were put out as a consultation and are likely to be given legal force next spring. Unlike previous sentencing rules handed down by predecessor bodies, they must be obeyed to the letter by judges and magistrates.
Lord Justice Leveson said: ‘What’s moving me is to get the system right, fair, proportionate and understandable.’ He added that there had been a ‘general trend towards longer sentences for all assault offences’ over the past ten years.
The guidelines could mean:
- Between 1,000 and 2,800 fewer offenders jailed each year for common assault.
- Between 300 and 900 fewer jailed each year for assault causing actual bodily harm.
- Between 200 and 700 fewer jailed each year for assault on a police officer.
- Between 15 and 50 fewer jailed each year for assault with intent to resist arrest.
- Between ten and 30 fewer jailed each year for causing grievous bodily harm.
‘There has been an increase in the severity of sentences at the lower end of the assault range and I think we’re trying to adjust that for reasons of proportionality, rather than anything else,’ he said. ‘I think there may be a slight increase at the very, very top, for the most serious offences of this type.’
Mr Clarke announced his policy of cutting down on numbers of criminals sent to prison in the summer. The aim, which disappointed many Tory MPs and voters, was to cut the 85,000 prison population and save the taxpayer money. Doubting that prison worked to cut crime, Mr Clarke said it cost £38,000 to keep someone in jail for a year, more than the fees to send a pupil to Eton.
His critics say that one major reason why crime has fallen in recent years is that judges and magistrates have chosen to send more offenders to jail, despite pressure from Labour politicians and from senior judges not to do so.
They also say that the cost of sending criminals to jail is small compared to the cost of the crimes they commit if they are left on the street to re-offend. The prison population has risen from around 55,000 in 1996 to about 85,000.
The Sentencing Council also hopes to reduce community sentences – including work details for offenders who may also be given curfews and electronic tags – and replace them in similar numbers by fines for lesser offenders.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said the Government was committed to ensuring that penalties deter crime, protect the public, punish offenders and cut re-offending. [How?}
Beware falling acorns! Health and safety lunacy reaches new peak with warning sign
It is an autumnal hazard that mankind has successfully negotiated for millions of years. Not that you would know from the latest advice from hospital health and safety chiefs who reckon that, after all this time, we need a little help in dealing with the danger of acorns. As a result signs have been put up around an oak tree warning ‘Caution Please Be Aware Of The Falling Acorns’.
Staff at the Brentwood Community Hospital in Essex erected the sign after a patient stepped on an acorn last year and suffered a slight sprain to her ankle. Although the patient did not sue, gardeners have also now been ordered to collect fallen acorns in the hospital grounds.
Andrew McGowan, 28, who was visiting a patient yesterday, said: ‘It’s health and safety madness really. You don’t need a sign to warn you about things falling from the tree. It happens at this time of year and you can see acorns on the ground.’ tree
Details emerged days after visitors to a park in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, were warned of falling conkers with a sign that proclaimed: ‘Beware Falling Conkers – Please Proceed with Care.’
The Brentwood hospital yesterday defended the move, citing the slip last year. A spokesman added: ‘Our groundsmen now sweep acorns up and they have put the signs up just to be on the safe side.’
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.
NY: Paladino condemns homosexuality, warns against 'brainwashing'
Political correctness does not come easily to Italians in Italy or Italian Americans. They have an admirable tendency to say what they think. Google "Silvio Berlusconi" if you want to find out more about political incorrectness in Italy. Silvio is the Prime Minister of Italy. In America think Tom Tancredo, Joe Arpaio and Joey Vento of Philly cheesesteak fame -- for instance
GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino today went well beyond his opposition to same-sex marriage, telling a Brooklyn Hasidic congregation that children should not be "brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option. It isn’t."
He told approximately 50 worshippers at the K’hal Adas Kashau synagogue in Williamsburg that children "would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family."
A prepared text of the speech distributed by leaders of the congregation before it was delivered was much stronger, declaring God disapproves of homosexuality and gays should be ashamed of themselves. "There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual," that text said. "That’s not how God created us, and that’s not the example that we should be showing our children."
Paladino campaign manager Michael Caputo claimed those remarks were part of an earlier draft prepared by the GOP candidate’s staffers and members of the congregation. When Paladino saw those lines, he disagreed with them and left them out of the speech, Caputo said. The congregation distributed the earlier draft in Paladino’s name without first clearing it with the campaign, Caputo claimed.
The congregation with knowledge of exactly what happened did not respond to calls for comment last night.
Paladino’s Democratic opponent, Andrew Cuomo, blasted the speech as "stunning homophobia and a glaring disregard for basic equality. "These comments, along with other views he has espoused, make it clear that he is way out of the mainstream and is unfit to represent New York," said Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto.
The speech came within weeks of several anti-gay crimes in the region - the suicide of bullied gay Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, the assault on a homosexual patron at the iconic Stonewall Inn in the West Village and the brutal anti-gay gang attack by the Latin Kings Goonies in The Bronx on Oct. 3.
Paladino’s harsh words about the gay community were blasted - even from members of his own party. "I don’t want New Yorkers to be brainwashed into thinking that ignorance is an equally valid and successful option. It isn’t," said Gregory Angelo, chairman of the Log Cabin Republicans of New York, a gay group.
And Democrat Christine Quinn, the City Council Speaker, said Paladino’s remarks are "dangerous" because they could incite further anti-gay attacks.
But Paladino insisted he was not advocating violence. "My approach is to live and let live," he said. "Don’t misquote me as wanting to hurt homosexual people in any way - that would be a dastardly lie," he said in the speech.
Paladino went on to say that religious values are under attack. "The ruling elite of this society has got to get over their hostility towards religious people and their values," he said. "We’ve got to stop mocking religion in this country. We have to stop pandering to the pornographers and the perverts who seek to target our children and destroy their lives,"
Paladino made another change to the speech before delivering it. The Williamsburg synagogue leaders asked him to strike a paragraph opposing the proposed mosque near Ground Zero. They did not wish the word "mosque" spoken in their house of worship.
His audience there and at an earlier appearance at a Borough Park synagogue, applauded much of Paladino’s anti-gay rhetoric.
"I oppose the homosexual agenda, whether they call it marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships," Paladino told congregants at the Karlsburg Synagogue. "Marriage is between a man and a woman," he said. "Tell your people that I am the religious-values candidate and my opponent is the ultra-liberal, socialist, social extremist that he is."
In introducing the candidate in Borough Park, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman on family issues for Rabbinical Alliance of America, praised Paladino’s anti-gay-marriage stance. "For 30 years or more, we have been kept down in the plantation by a liberal Democratic machine that throws us a few bread crumbs, a few shekels," the rabbi said. "For the first time in 3 and a half decades we have a gentleman who is - yes, he’s rough, he’s a little coarse, he’s not so dignified, but he tells it like it is."
Paladino praised the Hasidic community, saying, "Although my opponent and his liberal party and too many liberals in my party have pushed our culture terribly downhill, your community .¤.¤. can still band together to save societal values."
Photographer Dave Hogan was waiting at a red traffic light in North London when he reached over to the passenger seat to retrieve his new iPhone, which was about to fall on to the floor.
As he did so, there was a knock on the car window. Dave looked up to see a callow youth in a policeman’s uniform instructing him to pull over to the kerb. What followed was a Kafkaesque encounter with the bold future of London law enforcement.
The young officer, who had only recently graduated from the police academy at Hendon and was receiving on-the-job supervision from a WPC, told Hogan to park in a busy bus lane.
He pointed out that not only was he stationary, he wasn’t actually using the phone, merely moving it back on the seat to prevent it sliding off. In any event, it had a hands-free attachment.
Furthermore, he invited the officer to examine the directory in his iPhone, which would prove he hadn’t been making a call. Modern mobiles contain a record of the date, time and duration of all incoming and outgoing calls. It indicated that he had last used the phone a few minutes earlier, when he had pulled onto a petrol station forecourt for a can of pop and a packet of crisps.
There was no activity at the time the policeman claimed he had seen Dave using the phone. The last call recorded was at 1.09pm, a fact also confirmed by the telephone service provider from its own computerised log. This didn’t prevent the rookie cop writing out a ticket, specifying the time the alleged offence had taken place: 1.15pm.
Hogan insists he was ultra-polite to the officer, even though his patience was sorely tried. While parked in the bus lane, he saw a number of motorists drive past using their mobiles on the move. When he pointed this out, the young copper wasn’t interested. Dave appealed to the more experienced WPC, but she refused to intervene.
The policeman asked him to make a statement. Dave denied categorically that he had been using his phone and had firm evidence to prove it. ‘Why aren’t you writing this down?’ he asked.
‘I shall summarise your comments,’ he was told. The officer then asked him to sign the summary. Dave declined, on the perfectly reasonable grounds that it wasn’t what he had said. The interview then took a surreal turn.
Plod asked for his ethnic origin. Why? Just routine, sir. The police have to record the race and sex of everyone they stop. Dave said he was Welsh. Young Lochinvar studied his form, which contained an impressive catalogue of exotic ethnic categories. But not, apparently, exhaustive. After scouring it for a few moments, he announced: ‘I haven’t got a box for Welsh. I’ll put you down as White Other.’
He gave Dave a summons, telling him he had a week to plead guilty by post, pay a £60 fine and accept three penalty points on his licence. The alternative was to challenge the ticket in court, and run the risk of being disqualified from driving and fined £1,000, if the magistrate sides with the Old Bill and refuses to believe his version of events.
Dave would also have to take a day off work and pay a lawyer £500 to argue his case. Both police officers could also be tied up in court for a whole day, reducing still further the pathetically small number of bobbies on the beat.
If the court accepts the phone company’s record, proving that no call had been made or received at the time alleged in the summons, Dave would be cleared and would be entitled to claim costs from the police. In other words, the taxpayer would end up footing the bill for this farce.
Dave tells me he intends to fight and the whole affair has left a sour taste. He has had a clean licence for 30 years, a remarkable achievement for any motorist in the age of the Gatso, let alone a Fleet Street photographer in a flash 4x4.
He’s even prepared to acknowledge an excess of zeal in an over-enthusiastic young bobby making his first tentative steps on the street in an official culture of bureaucratic box-ticking and a voracious appetite for income raised by fines. But that doesn’t explain the attitude of the dopey WPC supposed to be babysitting her young charge. She could have nipped the whole thing in the bud when it became obvious a mistake had been made.
In his long career in newspapers, Dave has always been happy to help the police. Now he says he wouldn’t give them the time of day. This incident blocked a bus lane for 25 minutes and has shaken Dave’s belief in the honesty of the police. He never imagined he would be fitted up for a phone call he can prove he didn’t make. He naturally wonders why the police would go to such lengths to criminalise a law-abiding, middle-class taxpayer.
Yesterday, as the Equalities Commission published its latest report on ‘fairness’, there was the usual furore over the high number of young black men supposedly stopped unnecessarily by the police. But I’ve never seen any statistics for the number of middle-class, white — or White Other, come to that — motorists buggered about for no good reason.
Dave’s promised to keep me posted, but I shouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the day I haven’t received a raft of emails from Daily Mail readers relating similar tales of woe and officiousness on the part of Plod.
And the police wonder why Middle Britain’s faith in the forces of law and order is at an all-time low. Mind how you go.
Child poverty is higher in working families than in jobless households, study shows
There are now more children living in poverty among working families than in homes where no-one has a job, analysis revealed yesterday. It found that the number of children who live below the official poverty line even though at least one of their parents goes out to work has jumped by a third – 80,000 – in just ten years.
At the same time there has been a drop of a quarter in the total number of children in poor families where no-one works – largely thanks to the last Labour government’s drive to give state help and extra benefits to single mothers.
Almost all of the impoverished working families have two parents and many are families in which the father holds down a job while the mother stays at home to bring up the children.
The figures, from a report by the charity Trust for London, cover the capital alone. But they reflect a slide into poverty for working families that has also been shown up by Whitehall figures over the past three years.
Department of Work and Pensions calculations suggest there are now around 1.8million children in the country who are living below the poverty line, even though at least one of their parents goes out to work.
The figures come at a time of growing controversy over the Coalition Government’s plans. Ministers have promised to reward working people and withdraw help from shirkers. But plans announced so far suggest middle-income working families will be hit.
Yesterday’s report, London’s Poverty Profile, measured families living on incomes that are under 60 per cent of average income - the figure used by Whitehall as the poverty line. In the financial year that ended in March 2008, for a family with two parents and two children under 14 this was £288 a week.
The report said that in London that the number of children in poverty in homes where no-one has a job had fallen from 415,000 in the late 1990s to 305,000 in 2009 – a drop of almost 27 per cent. But the number of poor children in working families went up from 240,000 to 320,000, an increase of 33 per cent. ‘The vast majority of children in low-income, working households are in couple households,’ the report said. ‘So in-work poverty is much more strongly associated with couple rather than lone parent households.’
It added: ‘This change reflects national trends – the number of children in low-income working households in the UK is now at a record level. ‘Moreover this number actually increased during the first months of the recession, as people in work moved from full time to part-time work, and households with two earners became single earner households.’
Other analysts have pointed to the way the benefits system favours single parents, particularly through the tax credit system. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that in some cases a single mother is £200 a week better off than a couple would be because of the benefit trap for two-parent families.
Dr Dan Boucher of the charity CARE, which last week showed that the Coalition changes to child benefit and tax credits will mean an effective tax increase of over 40 per cent for some one-earner families, said state policies were pushing families apart.
‘The Government uses taxpayers’ money to make it more rather than less likely that children will be brought up in one parent homes,’ he said. ‘We must move to a new system that is supportive of what research demonstrates is the best environment for child development, the two-parent family, and in which work pays.’
Bharat Mehta of Trust for London said that his charity’s report ‘gives us a real insight into the impact the recession has had’. He added: ‘We call upon the Chancellor carefully to consider what impact his cuts will have, and in particular who will pay the greatest price for them.’
They often already are de facto. Now they want to make it de jure
Britain’s most senior police officer has privately lobbied the Home Secretary to make it more difficult for civilians to sue Scotland Yard. Sir Paul Stephenson claimed that money is being wasted fighting speculative law suits by civilians alleging brutality or wrongful arrest.
The Metropolitan Police commissioner also urged the Home Secretary to load higher costs onto officers and other staff suing police forces at employment tribunals over claims of discrimination or unfair treatment.
He added that members of the public should be charged a fee for making Freedom of Information requests, which he said were burdening police forces with unmanageable levels of paperwork.
But civil rights groups have condemned Sir Paul’s suggestions as an attempt to put the police beyond the rule of law.
The Met commissioner wrote to Theresa May, the Home Secretary, on June 22. In the letter, marked confidential, he set out a list of proposals designed to cut costs and free officers from red tape.
Calling for more obstacles to be placed in the way of members of the public bringing civil claims against the police, he wrote: "We believe there needs to be a radical shakeup of the system; currently for every pound paid out in compensation, up to £10 or sometimes more has to be paid out in legal costs to the claimants' lawyers.
"One of the key aspects is that the average settlements are well under £10,000 and most under £5,000, in other words these are not major areas of police misconduct with long-lasting consequences but often technical breaches."
James Welch, of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "The ability to challenge police misconduct in court is a vital constitutional safeguard against abuse of power. Under current rules, if you lose a case in the civil courts you can expect to be ordered to pay your successful opponent's legal costs." "A service bound to uphold the rule of law should not attempt to carve out an exception for itself," he told The Guardian.
Sir Paul also complained that police are forced to waste time and money defending employment tribunal claims brought by staff who later drop them, without incurring any financial penalty.
"As you will be aware, currently there are no cost disincentives for claimants lodging speculative employment tribunal claims which are withdrawn after considerable public resources have been expended in order to respond to such claims.
"We propose that a fee for issuing claims could be introduced and the grounds upon which costs can be made widened to meet these concerns," he wrote.
"Similarly, there is currently no incentive for claimants to accept early offers of settlement and substantial cost could be saved if claimants were put on risk as to costs from the time that such an offer is made."
Paul McKeever, chief of the Police Federation of England and Wales, denied that officers and staff are making “speculative” claims against the forces that employ them.
"Going to an employment tribunal is the last resort people take after being frustrated by the system. Nobody wants to go to an employment tribunal – it's a horrible process to go through," he said.
Sir Paul also urged the Home Secretary to slap fees on freedom of information requests after his force received 3,373 such requests last year.
He wrote: "We welcome the recent government commitment to review the application of FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] and would encourage you to consider introducing a fee (as there is for Data Protection Act requests) to bring it into line with the Data Protection Act."
A spokesman for the Home Office last night confirmed that Mrs May had received Sir Paul’s letter. He said: “The Home Secretary enjoys a good relationship with Sir Paul Stephenson. It is usual for him to write to her with his opinions and the home secretary always considers them carefully."
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.
Britain is not alone in having Stalinist social workers
"Happy birthday. You're property of the State." This is the message that was given to Cheyenne Irish, the newborn daughter of New Hampshire residents Jonathan Irish and Stephanie Taylor, who was literally stolen from her parents hours after her birth on October 6.
While there are reportedly some "very serious" criminal allegations involved in this matter, the focal point of the case should be this: Among the reasons cited by New Hampshire's child "protection" directorate as supposed justification for the seizure of Cheyenne was the fact that "Mr. Irish associated with a militia known as the, [sic] `Oath Keepers,' and had purchased several different types of weapons including a rifle, handgun and taser."
"Whether or not the charges against Mr. Irish are true, this action is entirely unconstitutional and represents a very dangerous precedent," Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, a practicing defense attorney, pointed out to Pro Libertate. "Using this man's political views and alleged affiliations to define parental suitability in any way is entirely illegitimate, and a direct threat to the rights of parents who are political activists of any kind."
This is hardly the first time law enforcement officials and social workers have cited "political extremism" to justify severe and extra-constitutional sanctions against people who have not been convicted of an actual crime.
Just a few months ago, police in Salem County, Massachusetts arrested an innocent man named Gregory Girard on palpably fraudulent criminal charges because his wife -- acting as a dutiful collectivist drone -- reported that he had developed "extremist" political views.
Cheyenne "wasn't even 16 hours old when they came in and stole her from us," reports her father Jonathan. The head of security at Concord Hospital "had a nurse come in while Cheyenne was sleeping [who] lied to us that they just wanted to take her to the nursery to see the doctor to be discharged. Even though I said NO to have the doctor come in the room they took her anyway.... I followed [them] out to the nursery because I didn't want my daughter out of my sight, as we were walking out I saw several gentlemen wearing suits with detective badges and my gut just started wrenching."
"They rushed her into the nursery and locked her in," Jonathan continues. "[W]hile I was talking to one of the other nurses the head of security comes up behind me, grabs my arm and starts walking me down the hall saying `you need to keep an open mind, you need to just hear them out' and he just kept repeating himself ignoring my questions as to who `they' were."
"When he got me in Stephanie's hospital room and sat me down on the couch the police department and DCYF [Division of Children, Youth and Family services -- that is, the child-snatcher apparat] showed up. Three uniformed patrol officers and 3-4 detectives with 2 DCYF social workers walked in the room.... [One] of the patrolmen asked if he could pat me down. I said NO, not giving my consent.... The officer grabbed my wrist, bent it behind my back and stood me up and proceeded to pat me down anyway."
After seizing a pocketknife and cigarette lighter and asking if Jonathan had "any other weapons" -- officer safety uber alles, you know -- the childnappers "gave us a fabricated affidavit ... telling us they were taking custody of our newborn daughter."
Irish refers to Cheyenne's mother, Stephanie Taylor, as his fiancee. The affidavit mentions that the couple had been under DCYF scrutiny "for approximately 21 months ... in a case involving two children of Stephanie Taylor; neglect petitions were filed on January 7, 2009 and a Termination of Parental Rights trial was recently concluded as to these two children...."
For reasons not specified in the document, Irish was "ordered to attend Ending the Violence with Scott Hampton; however, to date, has not completed this program." (Remember this point; we'll return to it anon.) The police complain that they have "responded to multiple calls" involving Irish and firearms, which resulted in "a pending charge for possession of a concealed weapon without a permit." It was in the context of that trivial paperwork matter that the affidavit mentioned Irish's "association" with the Oath Keepers, which was misrepresented in the affidavit as a "militia."
The Oath Keepers is an organization of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who have pledged not to carry out patently unconstitutional orders. The group's founder, Stewart Rhodes, emphasizes that it encourages lawful, peaceful non-cooperation, rather than armed insurrection, as a way of interposing against the all-encompassing criminal assault by the Regime against individual rights.
If Mr. Irish is a legitimate criminal suspect -- as opposed to a troubled parent who is considered a political criminal -- why wasn't he taken into custody? Why was he left relatively free, while his newborn daughter was wrenched from her mother and father through deliberate deception and the threat of lethal force?
The Oath Keepers have been targeted by the so-called Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an immensely profitable leftist "watchdog" group run by the degenerate fraud named Morris Dees. Through an illicit relationship with law enforcement agencies, both federal and local, the SPLC has become deeply involved in an effort to indoctrinate police (as well as educators and social workers) regarding the ubiquitous menace of "anti-government extremism." Rhodes points out that the SPLC, a nominally private group that is unaccountable to the public, is a member of the "Homeland Security Advisory Council" (HSAC) which published a report on domestic "radicalization" and "extremism" last Spring.
A work in progress, the HSAC describes itself as striving to prevent "violent crime that is motivated by extreme ideological beliefs" through "threat mitigation" and "community policing." That last term of art came into vogue during the early part of Bill Clinton's first term: Washington began to lavish funding on states and municipalities for the purpose of integrating the police with the social services bureaucracy, the better to create a seamless web from which no family could escape.
The domestic situation behind all of this is a mess. As noted above, Mr. Irish and his still-married "fiancee" have some baggage. The State insists that he's an abuser and she's a victim; they both stoutly deny the charges, and he's not being treated like a criminal suspect. Furthermore, their landlord maintains that Mr. Irish is "a very honorable person who loves his country. And I've watched the state and the police systematically hammer him."
Looking into some additional details in the Cheyenne Irish case, I'm struck by the fact that the overt act of "neglect" supposedly committed by her mother, Stephanie Taylor, was giving birth to the child. This would mean the only way she could have avoided being charged with "neglect" at this point would have been to abort the baby.
Granted, there is a backstory here -- a very confusing and troubling one. As noted above, Mr. Irish and his still-married "fiance" have plenty of problems, some of which are, to some extent, of their own creation. We're still left to deal with the fact that the State claims the authority to seize a child who is a victim of "neglect" by virtue of being born -- and that those responsible for that act defended it, in part, by referring to the political views of the child's biological father.
Hitler still has his followers among the British Left
As he did in the 1930s
According to author and columnist Virginia Ironside, most adopted kids would be better off dead. As would most children she considers "unfit". In fact, she says, a "loving" mother would smother a sickly child with a pillow, because the "suffering" of being ill makes that life meaningless and not worth living. She made these vile assertions in defense of abortion while appearing on the BBC's Sunday Morning Live during a discussion grossly entitled "Can abortion be a kindness?" First, her odious attempt to argue that abortion is a "loving choice" because some kids, in her mind, are unwanted. Her tunnel-visioned, sad excuse for a mind can't seem to fathom the fact that the children are always wanted, by someone. You know, like people with hearts and compassion.
Not having an abortion can amount to selfishness.
Abortion can often be seen as something wicked or irresponsible but in fact it can be a moral and unselfish act. If a baby is to be born severely disabled or totally unwanted, surely abortion is the act of a loving mother.
I was rendered speechless when I first watched this. Killing a child for being inconvenient to someone is "loving, moral and unselfish"? So, having a baby is, therefore, selfish? Besides her utter lack of a soul, she is completely morally bankrupt. And I think she has some explaining to do to very happy and loved children who have been adopted as well as to the mothers who, according to her, were so selfish as to give that child life. My friend, Rick Sheridan, can teach her a thing or two about what an actual unselfish act is. His adopted baby girl can also teach her what a loving mother actually does. Her mama gave her life and gave her A life. She didn't kill her. She unselfishly bore her and gifted Rick and his wife with a beautiful baby girl. I suggest Virginia look at a picture of Rick and his beautiful daughter and try to explain to her why she would have been better off dead.
Virginia Ironside then followed up her insane arguments for eugenics due to "unwantedness" (it's so crazy, it needs its own word) by being a proponent of killing children, unborn or born, whose health isn't up to snuff for her standards.
And I think that if I were a mother of a suffering child, I would be the first to want I mean a deeply suffering child I would be the first one to put a pillow over its head. I would with any suffering thing and I think the difference is that my feeling of horror suffering is many greater than my feeling of getting rid of a couple of cells because suffering can go on for years.
Hey, you know what else can go on for years, Virginia? Someone's life. You should know. You authored a book called The Virginia Monologues - 20 Reasons Why Growing Old is Great. Yet, you'd willingly kill a child and not give him or her that chance to grow old. Growing old is only great for you and whomever you deem fit enough, huh?
In ancient Sparta, babies who were considered handicapped or in any way not perfectly healthy were exposed to the elements, left on a mountainside to die. Have to "purify" society and all! That was a long time ago and thankfully modern civilization has come a long way. Now we use pillows.
Gee, it's too bad we don't have a fancy, new-fangled thing called medicine. To pro-abortionists, an illness is a reason to kill a baby. In fact, they believe that life is expendable for any reasonif it doesn't fit into your personal plans. This includes life that is outside of the woman's body. Ms. Ironside, like most pro-abortionists, also fails to mention those pesky babies who won't cooperate and who survive abortion attempts. Much like our President, who gives them so little thought that he, as a Senator in Illinois debating a Born Alive bill, said this:
As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if that fetus, or child - however way you want to describe it- is now outside the mother's womb and the doctor continues to think that it's nonviable but there's, let's say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they're not just coming out limp and dead..
However you want to describe "it". Sort of like the suffering "things" Ms. Ironside referred to above. And, not coming out limp and dead. How dare they insist on having the human will to live and the strong spirit to survive.
Lest you think Ms. Ironside is just some lone loon, The Guardian helpfully pointed out what monsters Leftists are by running an "article" by one of Ms. Ironside's fellow travelers:
The decision is always portrayed as being inherently irresponsible and destructive - Ironside argued that, if it prevented an unwanted child or a child being born profoundly disabled, then it was a good decision that a woman could be proud of. It wasn't the most tactful pro-choice argument you've ever heard (at one point, she alludes to "fatherless" children in the same bracket as the unwanted: that will enrage a few single mothers), but it wasn't a radical new shift in pro-choice thinking.
Yeah, that's the problem: It might be offensive to some single mothers. The moral bankruptcy is staggering. However, at least she's honest. It is NOT a new shift in pro-abortion thinking. This is what they believe and it always has been.
The reason it's controversial is twofold: first, pro-choicers have totally backed out of the abortion conversation, which has in consequence become dominated by anti-abortionists; second, because Ironside collapses "disabled" and "unwanted" into the same category. This is pretty insulting to disabled people..
Oh, we wouldn't want to be insulting! Killing is okay, but insulting? That's taboo! Unless of course, you are one of the "unwanteds". No one cares what you feel.
Of course Ironside is not waging a war against the disabled: she simply said "life isn't a gift per se". There are plenty of circumstances that make it more burdensome than joyful.
They have taken the miracle of life and have made it expendable and burdensome. On purpose. There's the difference between Ms. Ironside and I, and others like me, right there. We know that life is a priceless gift. A child's life has infinite value that cannot ever be fully measured. No alleged burden can take away from that fact, nor from the multitude of moments of love and joy, of human touch and loving arms, of beauty and grace, of happiness and wonder.
The Muslim world isn’t going to like this one bit. There’s an exhibit in a Colorado art gallery, which is stirring up outrage from observers who say it depicts Mohammad in a sexual act.
Enrique Chagoya's “The Misadventures of Mohammad” was initially created in 2003. It is a multi-panel piece in which "cultural and religious icons are presented with humor and placed in contradictory, unexpected and sometimes controversial contexts," the artist's publisher, Shark's Ink, said in a recent interview with Fox News.
The lithograph has been on display since, of all dates, Sept. 11 at the taxpayer-funded Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland, Colorado. It is part of an 82-print exhibit by 10 artists who have worked with Colorado printer Bud Shark. It includes several images of Mohammad, including one with what appears to be explicit homosexual content.
Scores of protesters gathered outside the museum over the weekend to object to Chagoya's work, including one Loveland Councilman, who failed to get the issue on the council agenda. But, regardless, he said he'll keep pressing to have what he has called "smut" and "pornography" taken down.
"This is a taxpayer-supported, public museum and it’s family-friendly," another member of the city council told the Denver Post. She added, "This is not something the community can be proud of." Other critics said the piece is appallingly disrespectful and offensive to Muslims everywhere.
"It is visual profanity," an art gallery owner told the local Loveland newspaper. She added, "It disgraces the mightiest prophet of the God of all creation. He may have been a pedophile but he was not a homosexual. To say otherwise is pure defamation."
But the artist, a professor at Stanford University, said he was simply making a statement on problems he sees with religious institutions, including the Islamic religion. "My intention is to critique religious institutions, since they affect everybody's lives - even people outside the religious sects," Chagoya told FoxNews.com.
"In my work mentioned above I address the role of the Islamic religion among other religious groups imposing its credo on cultures all over the globe. I also critique Islam's position against same-sex marriage while allowing pedophiles to be reviled as prophets.”
Chagoya said he's surprised by the response, saying there were no objections when the piece, which also includes comic book characters, Mexican pornography, Mayan symbols and ethnic stereotypes, was shown last year at a museum in Denver. “No one seemed to mind then,” he added. “I can’t understand the sudden outrage and intolerance towards satire.”
"My work is about the corruption of the spiritual by the institutions behind it, not about the beliefs of anyone. I respect people's opinions and I hope they respect mine," Chagoya said. "All I do is use my art to express my anxieties, with some sense of humor. Let’s agree to disagree, and long live our First Amendment.”
A local painter, who was part of a smaller group of counter-demonstrators outside the museum, said she agreed with Chagoya. "We have to be a country where freedom of expression thrives even if it offends the d-- Muslims," she bluntly told the local paper. “If you don’t like it you are probably stuck in the stone ages. When you manage to get running water get back in touch with me.”
The director of cultural services at the museum said the controversy has attracted people to the exhibit. The museum had over 600 visitors on Saturday, compared with an average of 75 and nearly 300 on Sunday, compared to the average 30 to 40, according to the local paper. "We invite everyone to come in, regardless of opinion, to write on a comment slip," she told the Reporter Herald.
Professor Chagoya, when asked whether he fears reprisals from Muslims, had this to say on Friday: “If you can’t understand satire – whether it mocks exalted professors or exalted prophets - then jump on the next camel and get the hell out of the country. This is America, not a Muslim theocracy."
Australia: Bureaucrats getting fat on programs designed to help blacks
ABORIGINAL politician Alison Anderson has slammed the massive increase in bureaucracy under the federal intervention into remote indigenous communities.
Ms Anderson, the independent member for the central Australian seat of MacDonnell, said the dramatic increase in red tape was impeding the development of remote economies and entrenching the welfare dependence in remote towns.
"More and more money is being wasted in bureaucracy," Ms Anderson said. "There is more and more whitefellas coming to talk to us and nothing gets done. "Money is being just poured into the bureaucracy and there are no outcomes.''
An investigation by The Australian has revealed a massive increase in the number of public servants employed in the NT since the intervention began, with the number of extra bureaucrats employed since 2007 almost equalling the number of front-line workers such as police, teachers and health workers.
But indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin has defended the intervention's progress, saying it was important to ensure public funds for indigenous services were used effectively and responsibly.
As well as an increase of 141 teachers, more than 60 police officers, and hundreds of nurses and doctors, schoolchildren were being fed properly at school and safe houses and support services for women and children had been expanded, Ms Macklin's office said.
Ms Anderson was a strong supporter of the intervention in its early days, in opposition to her colleagues within the NT Labor government who slammed the program as the "black kids' Tampa".
But the Aboriginal politician - who was the NT's Indigenous Policy Minister but quit the government in disgust at the wastage surrounding the $672 million Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program - has become deeply disillusioned with the direction of Aboriginal policy in the NT.
"I just think the intervention is finished, absolutely finished," Ms Anderson said. "Communities have actually gone backwards. There is no employment for indigenous people. It's all just training for the sake of training."
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.
If you read enough stories about Arab mobs attempting to lynch Jews in Israel, you notice a few common themes:
1--Use of very young children (or women) to freeze the "Yahud" target;
2--A team of older killers who step forward when the kids have completed their task;
3--Redundant camerawork to ensure that an anti-Jewish narrative can be fabricated from the incident, no matter what actually happened.
Considering this history, we can only imagine the horrific scene that would have ensued had David Be'eri (who was driving with his young son in the car with him) not STEPPED ON THE GAS and unhesitatingly knocked aside the little soulless human sandbag who was attempting to hurl a rock through his windshield from 5 feet away. Note carefully the details of this episode:
1--At .03, a friendly chat with a local driver (indicating neighborhood support for and knowledge of the planned lynching). Also, you can count no less than 6 pre-teen human sandbags, most wearing designer jeans. (Didn't the Khmer Rouge specialize in exploiting children as killers?)
2--Five of the kids run up the street directly at the honking car (.08-.10). But the car doesn't stop, so the murderous plan is disrupted.
3--Two OLDER "Asian youths" move in to hurl more rocks from closer to the car. (.15-.17)
4--At least five adults (not including the cameraman for this video) holding notably sophisticated, expensive cameras position themselves to get various better angles (.13-.21). These people are almost surely with the Palestinian Authority, not alJazeera.
5--The entire rear window of Mr. Be'eri's car is smashed out (.22-.25).
6--A team of older people who seem to be in charge take it upon themselves to bundle the little cretin into a van--notice his hands on the door (.37-.45) as they put him in. Does it look like he wants to get rescued?
Keep this failed Pallywood scene in mind as you read or watch the monotonous dirge of stories from lamestream media morons denouncing the arrogant-brutal-racist-insensitive-violent-provocative behavior of "extremist Jewish settlers" towards their peaceful Arab neighbors. Also, never forget that death by stoning ("lapidation") is an ancient Arab custom that is still popular to this day.
By the way, if the comments on this YouTube video are any indication, Israel may have turned a corner in terms of non-Jewish sympathy for the Arabs. I've never seen the words "I wished the kid died" posted so many times in one place.
Muslim Brotherhood Declares War on America; Will America Notice?
Barry Rubin
This is one of those obscure Middle East events of the utmost significance that is ignored by the Western mass media, especially because they happen in Arabic, not English; by Western governments, because they don't fit their policies; and by experts, because they don't mesh with their preconceptions.
This explicit formulation of a revolutionary program makes it a game-changer. It should be read by every Western decisionmaker and have a direct effect on policy because this development may affect people's lives in every Western country.
OK, enough of a build-up? Well, it isn't exaggerated. So don't think the next sentence is an anticlimax. Here we go:
The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has endorsed (Arabic) (English translation by MEMRI) anti-American Jihad and pretty much every element in the al-Qaida ideology book. Since the Brotherhood is the main opposition force in Egypt and Jordan as well as the most powerful group, both politically and religiously, in the Muslim communities of Europe and North America this is pretty serious stuff.
By the way, no one can argue that he merely represents old, tired policies of the distant past because the supreme guide who said these things was elected just a few months ago. His position reflects current thinking.
Does that mean the Egyptian, Jordanian, and all the camouflaged Muslim Brotherhood fronts in Europe and North America are going to launch terrorism as one of their affiliates, Hamas, has long done? No.
But it does mean that something awaited for decades has happened: the Muslim Brotherhood is ready to move from the era of propaganda and base-building to one of revolutionary action. At least, its hundreds of thousands of followers are being given that signal. Some of them will engage in terrorist violence as individuals or forming splinter groups; others will redouble their efforts to seize control of their countries and turn them into safe areas for terrorists and instruments for war on the West.
When the extreme and arguably marginal British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary says that Islam will conquer the West and raise its flag over the White House, that can be treated as wild rhetoric. His remark is getting lots of attention because he said it in English in an interview with CNN. Who cares what he says?
But when the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood says the same thing in Arabic, that's a program for action, a call to arms for hundreds of thousands of people, and a national security threat to every Western country.
The Brotherhood is the group that often dominates Muslim communities in the West and runs mosques. Its cadre control front groups that are often recognized by Western democratic governments and media as authoritative. Government officials in many countries meet with these groups, ask them to be advisers for counter-terrorist strategies and national policies, and even fund them.
President Barack Obama speaks about a conflict limited solely to al-Qaida. And if one is talking about the current military battle in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen that point makes sense. Yet there is a far bigger and wider battle going on in which revolutionary Islamists seek to overthrow their own rulers and wage long-term, full-scale struggle against the West. If it doesn't involve violence right now it will when they get strong enough or gain power.
Labour wasted hundreds of millions of pounds on empty offices and mobile phones for the most junior civil servants, it will be revealed today.
Sir Philip Green, who has been brought in by the Tories to eradicate government waste, says taxpayers may even have paid for officials’ personal calls on their free BlackBerrys.
The owner of Topshop and BHS will today publish a report exposing how departments sometimes have no idea what they are spending public money on.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, who has seen the report, said it showed that financial controls across Whitehall are ‘lamentably bad’. The Government could use the report as justification for a massive round of cuts to departments.
David Cameron caused controversy in August when he appointed Sir Philip to produce the report on how government could make better use of its assets, property and kit. His Lib Dem coalition partners – led by Chris Huhne – were annoyed because the Topshop owner is rumoured to have avoided paying UK tax.
The report will show that public sector bodies are spending £10million a year on empty offices, including space in Victoria, central London, for the Highways Agency.
The billionaire has found that thousands of officials get free BlackBerrys and other mobiles, despite working nine-to-five at their desks. And he says millions of pounds are being wasted because police authorities are paying over the odds for uniforms.
An official said: ‘Sir Philip was also amazed that different police authorities order the same uniforms separately from the same suppliers. They could be saving millions of pounds if they bought in bulk.’
His study will show that different departments are paying massively varying prices for the same furniture, office supplies and computers.Sir Philip also looked at spending on advertising, consultants and PR.
Mr Maude said he would be introducing strict limits and rules on spending. For example, every IT project worth more than £1million would have to be signed off by him.
A Downing Street source said: ‘Sir Philip has found waste on just about every item you could imagine a government department spending money on – desks, computers, pens. You name it, it’s there.’
Sir Philip and his wife are worth more than £4billion. Energy secretary Mr Huhne has said his appointment as advisor had sent the ‘wrong message’. He has said: ‘Philip Green could clearly, if he were to arrange his tax affairs in a different manner and spend rather more time in the country, be paying rather a lot more tax.’
Three years in jail without trial. India? Africa? China? Russia? No: Australia
Bureaucracy works its usual evil in Australia too: The death of a prisoner in a Queensland jail prompts the question: why was he still awaiting trial after almost three years inside? The evidence seems to point to his involvement in a death. But what if he was innocent?
What do we know about Adam Cartledge? Not a lot except that police reckon he murdered his ex-girlfriend, Michelle Rigg. His best friend, a bloke named Arran Jeffries, couldn't believe it when his mate was charged. saying he was "not a violent person" Whether he changed his mind when Cartledge allegedly led police to her body in a shallow grave is not recorded.
However, we do know is that all this happened almost three years ago, Rigg, 28, was reported missing on November 26, 2007, three days alter she disappeared from a duplex she shared with Cartledge, 39. Cartledge appeared in Southport Magistrates Court on December 3, 2007, charged with her murder.
Last Tuesday, Cartledge was found dead in his cell at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre. The cause has not yet been made public but there are no suspicious circumstances. But there are disgraceful circumstances because Cartledge was still being held awaiting trial almost three years after he was arrested. He wasn't due to appear in court again until June next year.
He may have been a vicious killer but the fact is that he hadn't been found guilty of anything - not even jaywalking - yet he had been banged up in prison for almost three years. A legal maxim has it that justice delayed is justice denied. Cartledge wasn't just denied justice, he didn't even catch a glimpse of it.
And, somewhere, are family and friends who will never see Ms Rigg's memory receive justice. Cartledge, Ms Rigg and the community have been badly served by a system that allowed this to happen. The original police inquiry was pretty standard, with Cartledge charged fairly pronto and Ms Rigg's remains found not long after. Yet, it was almost a year later that Cartledge appeared in court and was committed for trial.
In February this year - you do the sums - he appeared in the Supreme Court before Justice Peter Applegarth. There, prosecutor Belinda Merrin was granted an adjournment on behalf of both the Crown and the defence so a singlet found on Ms Rigg's body could be further examined and a pathologists report could be gathered. This would take six months!
What choice did Justice Applegarth have, when both the Crown and the defence sought the adjournment in the pursuit of justice as they saw it? The best efforts of men and women of intellect, learning, integrity and goodwill unwittingly led to events that delayed justice until eternity.
No one is to blame but we are entitled to wonder about the workloads and/or efficiencies of the courts, the prosecution and the defence that made these delays inevitable. And we are entitled to wonder about the adequacy and the funding of scientific inquiry in Queensland that judicial exhibits and evidence have to be examined in Victoria and take so long
It's not a new issue but it refuses to go away. In this case, the inadequacies have followed a man to his grave. The evidence seems to point to Cartledge's involvement in Ms Rigg's death, or at least in the disposal of her body. It was sufficient for him to be committed for trial. But what if he were innocent? Magna Carta guaranteed: "To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice."
In this case, no rights were sold or refused, but justice was patently denied to both Cartledge and Ms Rigg. And it is denied to many others, with reports that prisoners in Queensland spend on average 6.4 months in custody compared with 5.9 months in Victoria and NSW.
Sympathy for Cartledge will be limited but these sorts of disgraceful delays might be more important to our confidence in the legal system than any passing anger about the fate of a few kiddie-fiddlers. An inquiry is needed if justice is to be anything more than a theoretical concept in Queensland.
The article above by Terry Sweetman appeared (print only) in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on 10 October, 2010
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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.
American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.
Bill O'Reilly makes a respectful and respectable case below but I disagree with him. There are already too many infringements of free speech to admit any more. And note that what Fred Phelps says (God hates f*gs") is essentially what St Paul says in Romans chapter 1. Censoring ANYONE from preaching a Bible message anywhere at any time would be a huge collapse of America's civilizational foundations
Put yourself in this position: You lose a son in Iraq. He is killed fighting for his country. You arrange a funeral for him, an event that is emotionally devastating for your family and friends. Outside that funeral, protestors hold signs saying that God killed your son because he fought for a country that "tolerates" homosexuals. Some of them curse at people attending the service.
That's exactly what happened to Albert Snyder and his family in Maryland. In response, Snyder sued the leader of the hate group, Fred Phelps, and a jury awarded him millions. But the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia overturned the verdict on appeal and even imposed court costs on the Snyder family. The judges rationalized their misguided ruling by writing: "Although reasonable people may disagree about the appropriateness of the Phelps' protest, this conduct simply does not satisfy the heavy burden required for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress under Maryland law."
"Reasonable people may disagree about the appropriateness of the Phelps protest"? Are you kidding me? Who exactly thinks God wanted Matthew Snyder dead because America does not persecute gay people? Osama bin Laden?
The federal court's ruling is a legal ruse, a bunch of pinheaded mumbo-jumbo that seeks to justify injurious behavior under the guise of free speech. Forty-eight attorneys general have filed an amicus brief in support of the Snyder family. These prosecutors well understand that words can be used as weapons designed solely to harm American citizens. There is no "reasonable" debate in what the vicious protestors did. They intentionally wanted to inflict emotional distress on the grieving family of a dead soldier. That is against civil law.
One footnote: When Albert Snyder told the court he could not pay the court costs, Phelps told the press he should use his son's death benefits to satisfy the judgment. I hope those judges are sleeping well.
If Phelps and his crew had put forth that God wanted a soldier to die because his family was part of a minority group, the federal court ruling might have been different. Hate crime legislation was attached to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the legal system takes hateful action against minorities very seriously, as it should.
The Supreme Court is now hearing the Snyder-Phelps case, and the outcome is important for all Americans.
With the rise of the Internet, cyber-bullying and threatening behavior have become a plague upon the land. Kids are committing suicide because they are humiliated on the Net, and anyone can be targeted by sick individuals. Inflicting emotional distress on another human being is just a mouse click away.
I well understand the slippery-slope free speech argument being put forth by those who believe the federal judges did the right thing constitutionally. I make my living under the First Amendment, and I don't want the government telling me what I can and can't say. But evil is evil, and attacks are attacks. The Snyder family has a constitutional right to privacy and the pursuit of happiness. The despicable Phelps mob infringed on those rights.
Serbs don't think homosexuality is anything to be proud of
SEVERAL thousand Serbs marched in the capital Belgrade overnight in protest against a planned gay pride parade.
Participants ranged from families with children to young football supporters, some of whom gave fascist salutes and shouted for the death of homosexuals.
Police kept a close eye on the march from the city centre towards the parliament, organised by the extreme nationalist Dveri organisation, but there were no incidents.
"The state does nothing to help families yet it authorises this unnatural rally," Dveri spokesman Miroslav Parovic said. "We want it stopped."
Serbian gay organisations plan a parade in Belgrade today, having called off last year's after the government said it could not guarantee the security of the participants.
The first ever gay pride parade in Serbia in 2001 was broken up in violent clashes provoked by right-wing extremists.
The Serbian Orthodox Church on Friday spoke out against the parade but also warned against violence targeting participants.
Serbian Minister for Human Rights and Minorities Svetozar Ciplic has said he will take part in today's parade together with "at least two other ministers" and several members of parliament.
The representative of the European Commission in Belgrade, French diplomat Vincent Degert, has also announced his intention to join the parade.
In recent days anti-parade posters have appeared in Belgrade with the threat: "We are waiting for you."
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) warned Serbia on Wednesday that the gay parade would be a test of "the maturity of Serbian democracy".
One welfare reform that would make Britons happier... and richer
By Peter Hitchens
There's only one lasting, simple welfare reform package this country needs. It goes like this. First, an announcement that nine months from today, all benefits of any kind for new unmarried mothers should cease.
Note the word 'new'. Existing victims of one of the stupidest policies in human history should continue to get their handouts and subsidised homes until their children are grown. It is not their fault, or their children's, that they were misled by weak and wicked politicians into this way of life.
They should not be condemned or harassed. But this state-sponsored assault on marriage should stop. Just to emphasise the point, we should once again distinguish between those who end up as lone parents through no choice of their own and those who choose this state.
We should once again distinguish between those who end up as lone parents through no choice of their own and those who choose this state
We should once again distinguish between those who end up as lone parents through no choice of their own and those who choose this state
The Widow's Pension – scandalously abolished – should be reinstated. Deserted wives should likewise be offered proper support.
Next, the disastrous divorce reforms of the Sixties, which have blasted the lives of millions of deserted children, should be replaced by new rules that make it rather harder to break up a marriage than to end a car-leasing agreement.
And Parliament should overturn the disastrous judge-made laws which have, over the past 50 years, left divorced husbands with almost no rights at all. Within ten years we should be a happier, more orderly and peaceful society, and a much richer one too.
Depriving children of fathers, which seems to have been the policy of the so-called 'centre-left' and 'centre-right' for 40 years, has had a grim and painful effect on almost every aspect of our lives – and has affected almost every topic I touch on in this column.
The costs of trying to patch up the damage are immense, in grief and money. It is as if the whole country has been banging its head hard against a concrete wall for decades. It would be wonderful to stop, as well as being rational and kind. But of course it will not happen.
For all three parties have been taken over by Sixties liberals, who will never do this. Which is why no message of hope came out of the Tory Conference last week, and why the Prime Minister was reduced to attacks on a dead-and-buried Labour Government, and to flogging his gassy, thought-free 'Big Society', under which we're all supposed to come home from work and the long commute, and then rush out to hold up the sky.
What was really wrong with the Tory Party's amateur dramatics was not the incompetence, though there was plenty of that; nor the dismissive callousness towards mothers who take the responsible decision to bring up their own children; nor the impracticable promises to 'clamp down' on a welfare system that is specifically designed to create more clients every day and will grow inexorably if this does not stop.
It was that it has turned its back forever on the married family (while tossing footling token gestures in its direction). And it has sold its soul – and the conservative people in this country – in return for the approval of the BBC and for the empty, pompous joys of office without power.
No wonder there were so few conservatives there, and no wonder Tory Party membership is shrivelling so quickly that the figures are a secret.
It is lunchtime in the world's biggest prison camp, and I am enjoying a rather good caffe latte in an elegant beachfront cafe. Later I will visit the sparkling new Gaza Mall, and then eat an excellent beef stroganoff in an elegant restaurant.
Perhaps it is callous of me to be so self-indulgent, but I think I at least deserve the coffee. I would be having a stiff drink instead, if only the ultra-Islamic regime hadn't banned alcohol with a harsh and heavy hand.
Just an hour ago I was examining a 90ft-deep smuggling tunnel, leading out of the Gaza Strip and into Egypt. This excavation, within sight of Egyptian border troops who are supposed to stop such things, is – unbelievably – officially licensed by the local authority as a 'trading project' (registration fee £1,600). Tale of two cities: Gaza's sparkling new shopping mall offers a stark contrast to the images of slums we are used to
It was until recently used for the import of cattle, chocolate and motorcycles (though not, its owner insists, for munitions or people) and at its peak earned more than £30,000 a day in fees.
But business has collapsed because the Israelis have relaxed many of their restrictions on imports, and most such tunnels are going out of business. While I was there I heard the whine of Israeli drones and the thunder of jet bombers far overhead...
Don't, please, accuse of me of complacency or denying the truth. I do not pretend to know everything about Gaza. I don't think it is a paradise, or remotely normal. But I do know for certain what I saw and heard.
There are dispiriting slums that should have been cleared decades ago, people living on the edge of subsistence. There is danger. And most of the people cannot get out.
But it is a lot more complicated, and a lot more interesting, than that. In fact, the true state of the Gaza Strip, and of the West Bank of the Jordan, is so full of paradoxes and surprises that most news coverage of the Middle East finds it easier to concentrate on the obvious, and leave out the awkward bits.
Which is why, in my view, politicians and public alike have been herded down a dead end that serves only propagandists and cynics, and leaves the people of this beautiful, important part of the world suffering needlessly.
For instance, our Prime Minister, David Cameron, recently fawned on his Islamist hosts in Turkey by stating Gaza was a 'prison camp'. This phrase is the official line of the well-funded Arab and Muslim lobby, who want to make sure Israel is seen by the world as a villainous oppressor....
But if you think Israel is the only problem, or that Israelis are the only oppressors hereabouts, think again. Realise, for a start, that Israel no longer rules Gaza. Its settlements are ruins.
No Israelis can be found inside its borders. And, before you say 'but Israel controls the Gaza border', look at a map. The strip's southern frontier – almost as hard to cross as the Israeli boundary – is with Egypt. And Cairo is as anxious as Israel to seal in the Muslim militants of Hamas.
Gaza was bombed on the day I arrived in retaliation for a series of rocket strikes on Israel, made by Arab militants. Those militants knew this would happen, but they launched their rockets anyway. Many Gazans hate them for this. One, whom I shall call Ibrahim, told me how he had begged these maniacs to leave his neighbourhood during Israel's devastating military attack nearly two years ago. His wife was close to giving birth.
He knew the Israelis would quickly seek out the launcher, and that these men would bring death down on his home. But the militants sneered at his pleading, so he shoved his wife into his car and fled.
Moments after he passed the first major crossroads, a huge Israeli bomb burst on the spot where his car had been. The diabolical power of modern munitions is still visible, in the ruins of what was once a government building.
It looks as if a giant has chewed and smashed it, and then come back and stamped on it. If you can imagine trying to protect a pregnant woman from such forces, then you can begin to understand how complex it is living here, where those who claim to defend you bring death to your door.
For the Islamist rocket-firers are also the government here, supported by Iran and others who care more for an abstract cause than they do for real people. They claim that their permanent war with Israel is for the benefit of the Palestinian Arabs. But is it?
Human beings will always strive for some sort of normal life. They do this even when bombs are falling and demagogues raging. Even when, as in Gaza, there is no way out and morality patrols sweep through restaurants in search of illicit beer and women smoking in public or otherwise affronting the 14th Century values of Hamas.
So I won't give the name of the rather pleasant establishment where young women, Islamic butterflies mocking the fanatics' strict dress code with bright make-up and colourful silken hijabs, chattered as they inhaled apple-scented smoke from their water-pipes.
Their menfolk, nearby, watched football on huge, flat-screen televisions. Nor will I say where I saw the Gazan young gathering for beach barbecues beneath palm-leaf umbrellas.
Of course this way of life isn't typical. But it exists, and it shows the 'prison camp' designation is a brain-dead over-simplification. If it is wrong for the rich to live next door to the desperate – and we often assume this when wecriticise Israel – then what about Gaza's wealthy, and its Hamas rulers?
They tolerate this gap, so they are presumably as blameworthy as the Israelis whose comfortable homes overlook chasms of poverty.
Then there is the use of the word 'siege'. Can anyone think of a siege in human history, from Syracuse to Leningrad, where the shops of the besieged city have been full of Snickers bars and Chinese motorbikes, and where European Union and other foreign aid projects pour streams of cash (often yours) into the pockets of thousands? Once again, the word conceals more than it reveals.
In Gaza's trapped, unequal society, a wealthy and influential few live in magnificent villas with sea views and their own generators to escape the endless power cuts.
Gaza also possesses a reasonably well-off middle class, who spend their cash in a shopping mall – sited in Treasure Street in Gaza City, round the corner from another street that is almost entirely given over to shops displaying washing machines and refrigerators.
Siege? Not exactly. What about Gaza's 'refugee camps'. The expression is misleading. Most of those who live in them are not refugees, but the children and grandchildren of those who fled Israel in the war of 1948.
All the other refugees from that era – in India and Pakistan, the Germans driven from Poland and the Czech lands, not to mention the Jews expelled from the Arab world – were long ago resettled. Unbelievably, these people are still stuck in insanitary townships, hostages in a vast struggle kept going by politicians who claim to care about them. These places are not much different from the poorer urban districts of Cairo, about which nobody, in the Arab world or the West, has much to say.
It is not idle to say that these 'camps' should have been pulled down years ago, and their inhabitants rehoused. It can be done. The United Arab Emirates, to their lasting credit, have paid for a smart new housing estate with a view of the Mediterranean.
It shows what could happen if the Arab world cared as much as it says it does about Gaza. Everyone in Gaza could live in such places, at a cost that would be no more than small change in the oil-rich Arab world's pocket.
But the propagandists, who insist that one day the refugees will return to their lost homes, regard such improvements as acceptance that Israel is permanent – and so they prefer the squalor, for other people.
Those who rightly condemn the misery of the camps should ask themselves whose fault it really is. As so often in the Arab world, the rubbish-infested squalor of the streets conceals clean, private quarters, not luxurious and sometimes basic, but out of these places emerge each day huge numbers of scrubbed, neatly-uniformed children, on their way to schools so crammed that they have two shifts.
I wish I was sure these young people were being taught the principles of human brotherhood and co-existence. But I doubt it. On a wall in a street in central Gaza, a mural – clearly displayed with official approval – shows an obscene caricature of an Israeli soldier with a dead child slung from his bayonet.
I might add that an Arab intellectual, sitting in a Gaza cafe, recalled for me the happy days when Gazan women used to wear short skirts (now they all wear shrouds and veils) and you could get a beer by the beach.
But perhaps best of all was the comment of the Arab Israeli who mourned for 'the good old days before we had peace'. It may well be that no solution to the problem of Israel is possible, and that it will all end, perhaps decades from now, in a nuclear fireball.
But if outside politicians, more interested in their reputations than in the lives of Arabs and Israelis, would only stop their search for a final settlement, might it be that people – left to their own devices – might find a way of living together, a way that was imperfect, but which no longer involved human beings being dissolved into hunks of flying flesh by high explosive?
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.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 36% of voters now say relations between blacks and whites are getting better. That's down from 62% in July of last year at the height of the controversy involving a black Harvard professor and a white policeman.
As readers will recall, in that case our "post-racial" president, who was elected largely for his skin color and who made his hatred of Caucasians public knowledge in an autobiography, acted stupidly by siding with a race-baiting moonbat against the police.
African-Americans are much more pessimistic than whites. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of whites think black-white race relations are getting better, but just 13% of blacks agree.
Yet…
Interestingly, 59% of African-American voters continue to believe the country is moving in the right direction, a view shared by just 27% of whites.
You could almost get the impression that the Manchurian Moonbat is not expected to get along with Whitey, but to tear down his world.
Every time a liberal whips out the race card, the situation gets worse:
Confidence in the nation's course among African-Americans soared after Barack Obama's election. But then several prominent Democrats, perhaps most notably former President Jimmy Carter, suggested that opposition to the president's health care plan was motivated in part by racism. Only 12% of all voters agreed in September of last year, but among blacks, 27% felt that way and 48% were undecided.
The only way to end racial tension is to integrate and assimilate — which stands in direct contradiction to the liberal strategy of balkanization through "multiculturalism." The more power liberals hold, the worse race relations will inevitably get. What did anyone really expect?
Pregnant Muslim ordered to remove her veil in British court because magistrates can't see her face
A pregnant Muslim woman was ordered by magistrates to remove her veil while she gave evidence against her violent ex-partner yesterday. Georgina Richards, 36, initially refused for religious reasons but reluctantly agreed when magistrates said they might not accept her evidence if they could not see her 'facial expressions'.
The case at Leicester Magistrates Court was held up for over an hour while magistrates agreed to hear her evidence from behind a screen.
Chairman of the bench Lawrence Faulkner told her: 'We need to see a person’s facial expressions to assess the evidence they are giving. 'If you refuse to remove your veil, we may not be able to accept your evidence.'
Miss Richards, who is heavily pregnant, gave evidence against her ex-partner Ismail Mangera, 30, from behind a screen in the courtroom.
Mr Mangera was found guilty of punching Miss Richards in the face and scrawling abuse on her front door.
But after the hearing, Miss Richards hit out at the magistrates for forcing her to remove her veil. She said: 'I was a bit unhappy that he told me to take my veil off. 'They put screens up next to me but I didn’t really want to do it. 'But I thought the case would be dropped if I didn’t take it off. 'It just made me feel uncomfortable. They wanted to see the expression on my face but I don’t think it really matters, I think I could have done it with my veil on.' 'Now I just feel relieved that I’ve said what I’ve got to say.'
Miss Richards told the court her religion states she should not remove her veil in front of men in public.
Magistrates heard that Mr Mangera attacked Miss Richards, mother to three of the couple’s children and eight months pregnant with their fourth, between April 1 and April 30.
The magistrates warned Mangera he was facing jail. Sentencing was deferred until October 20 to allow a probation report to be produced.
The rise of Britain's 'Shameless generation' after drop in court cases under Labour government
The horrifying scale of benefit fraud by the ‘Shameless’ generation can be revealed by the Daily Mail today. During Labour’s final two years in power, prosecutions for false claims slumped and overpayments soared. The figures come during a week in which the Tories pledged to clamp down on abuse of the welfare system by introducing a £500-a-week payments cap.
Jeremy Hunt, the party’s Culture Secretary, added to the controversy by suggesting the workshy should stop having children if they could not afford them.
Now Freedom of Information requests have found that prosecutions of benefit cheats have fallen by 11 per cent in the past year, while cases of overpayments have gone up by 13 per cent. The statistics make a mockery of the anti-fraud slogan at the Department for Work and Pensions: ‘It’s not if we catch you; it’s when.’
Cases of overpayment soared to 499,204 in 2009/10 compared with 439,966 the year before. But only a tiny number of the fraudsters are taken to court. In 2009/10, just 7,765 cases led to prosecutions compared with 8,701 in 2008/9. The amount of money recovered has risen over the past year from £280million to £294.4million but by far less than the estimated amount of overpayment.
Last night, Emma Boon of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘These figures show the dire state of our welfare system. Taxpayers’ money has been leaking out of the cracks at HMRC, with overpayments rising at an alarming rate. ‘Their problems have to be addressed immediately to stop our money that’s meant to help the poor simply being wasted.’
Philip Hollobone, Tory MP for Kettering, said: ‘These figures are a sad indictment of Britain’s benefits system as a result of the mismanagement of the Labour government.’
Welfare reform dominated the past week’s Conservative conference, with Chancellor George Osborne coming under attack for cuts to child benefit which penalised stay-at-home mums. He has proposed a £26,000 a year cap on welfare payments – in line with the average take home wage.
Lord Steel, Liberal leader from 1976 to 1988, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he sympathised with plans to tackle welfare dependency. ‘All MPs have had people come into their surgeries who say their next door neighbours are living off the state,’ he said. ‘When I was an MP there were people who used to deliberately get themselves pregnant in order to jump the housing queue – and that is reprehensible both from the point of view of the parents and the children.’
Muslims can riot over disrespect for their religion but Christians will be arrested for protesting disrespect for their religion
A Montana woman has been charged with criminal mischief after allegedly taking a crowbar to a controversial art museum display in Colorado that critics say portrays Jesus Christ receiving oral sex from another man.
Kathleen Folden, 56, of Kalispell, Mont., was arrested Wednesday and accused of damaging the the 12-panel lithograph, "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals."
The piece, on display since Sept. 11 at the tax-funded Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland, Colo., includes several images of Jesus, including one in which he appears to be receiving oral sex from a man as the word "orgasm" appears beside Jesus’ head.
It has triggered protests and even calls to police by critics asking for an investigation into whether it violates a Colorado law that protects children from obscenity, the Loveland Reporter Herald reported. The city attorney determined it did not.
Witnesses told the Reporter-Herald that Folden entered the Loveland Museum Gallery, used a crowbar to break glass over the art and ripped the print.
Mark Michaels, an area art dealer, told Denver's KUSA-TV that he tried to stop her adding that the woman screamed: "How can you desecrate my Lord?"
Police spokesman Andy Hiller said the work by Stanford University professor Enrique Chagoya has a tear in the panel with the depiction of Christ. The piece is part of an 82-print exhibit by 10 artists who have worked with Colorado printer Bud Shark.
Chagoya says he's sad that his book and the First Amendment were attacked.
"Should we as artists, or any free-thinking people, have to be subjected to fear of violent attacks for expressing our sincere concerns? I made a collage with a comic book and an illustration of a religious icon to express the corruption of something precious and spiritual," Chagoya told FoxNews.com. "There is no nudity, or genitals, or explicit sexual contact shown in the image. There is a dressed woman, a religious icon's head, a man showing his tongue, and a skull of a Pope in the upper right corner of the controversial page. I did not make a picture of Christ. I used symbols as one would use words in a sentence to critique corruption of the sacred by religious institutions."
Those institutions, he says, need to be criticized when they get corrupted and people have every right to dislike his criticism, just as he has a right to express it.
"Violence is the opposite of what Jesus, Mohammed or Buddha taught. I am amazed that some of the followers don't adhere to the teachings. Agree to disagree and love thy neighbor," he said.
Police said the incident was the first disturbance since protesters began gathering this week outside the city-owned museum about 50 miles north of Denver. About 100 people packed the Loveland City Council meeting Tuesday night to support and oppose removing Chagoya's work.
The council decided to leave the art in place.
Chagoya says he hopes people realize that "only totalitarian societies are ruled by extreme rules."
"Do we want to live as if under Stalin or Hitler who censored not only the arts but all levels of thinking?," he said. "This is America, but I don't take my rights for granted. I know they can easily be taken away by hate and extremism. Lets exchange ideas not insults, or labels. We all want this world to be a better place to live in, not a place where we live in fear of angry disagreements that will take us nowhere."
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.
Feminist anti-Israel activists become "comfort women" for Arab men
A reasonable penalty for letting hate rule your brain
Two activists have exposed a disturbing phenomenon that they say is an open secret within the “peace camp”: female “peace” activists are routinely harassed and raped by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria with whom they have come to identify. They say the phenomenon has gotten worse lately and that many foreign women end up as wives of local Arabs against their will, but cannot escape their new homes.
Roni Aloni Sedovnik, a feminist activist, penned an article in News1 – an independent website run by respected investigative reporter Yoav Yitzchak – under the heading “The Left's Betrayal of Female Peace Activists Who were Sexually Assaulted.”
“A nauseous atrocity has been going on for a long time behind the scenes at the leftists' demonstration at Bil'in, Naalin and Sheikh Jarrah [Shimon HaTzaddik],” she writes. “A dark secret that threatens to smash the basic ideological values upon which the demand to end the occupation of the Territories rests.”
It turns out, she explains, that when female peace activists from Israel and abroad come out to Judea and Samaria and demonstrate against the Israeli “occupation,” they are assaulted sexually by the Arab men whom they have come to help. These are not isolated incidents, Aloni-Sedovnik stresses. Rather, this is an “ongoing and widespread” phenomenon that includes verbal and physical abuse. She accuses the 'peace' camp of purposely covering up the trend so as not to offend “the Palestinians and their heritage, which sees women as sexual objects.”
Media cover-up
Aloni-Sedovnik cites two specific cases which she has knowledge of – one is a case of rape and another is “severe sexual harassment.” The attackers in both cases, she stresses, were familiar with the victims and knew that they were “peace activists.”
The rape occurred several months ago in the village of Umm Salmona, near Bethlehem. The victim, an American activist, wanted to press charges but leftist activists put pressure on her not to do so, so as not to damage the struggle against the 'occupation.'
The second case involved an Israeli activist who took part in the demonstrations at Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, where the High Court ruled that Jewish families may move into homes that they have owned for generations. This woman filed a complaint with the police but retracted it after “severe and unfair pressure” from the demonstrations' organizers, according to Aloni-Sedovnik. Furthermore, the organizers appealed to demonstrators to dress modestly when they come to the Arab neighborhoods and suggested that they wear head scarves.
Aloni-Sedovnik accuses the Israeli media of complicity in the cover-up.
“How is it that we do not hear the voice of the radical feminists who repeat, day and night, that occupation is occupation, and it does not matter if it is a nation that is doing the subjugation, or a man who is subjugating a woman?
"It appears that there is a gap between the radical-leftist feminist theory about the active resistance to the occupation of the Territories, and the stuttering self-annulment in the face of the violent conquest of women.”
The Umm Salmona case was reported in Haaretz as an attempted rape but does not seem to have made it beyond the blog pages.
Foreign women raped and subjugated
Earlier this year, a blogger and literature buff named Yehudah Bello, who writes in various venues about history and the theory of evolution, wrote a blog post with the striking title: “The Female Leftist Activists are Raped Day after Day, Night after Night.” Bello is no ultra-nationalist, and he supports the creation of a PA state – a fact which makes his claims all the more believable.
Most female leftist European activists, writes Bello, are brainwashed in their youth into hating Israel, and then sent directly into Judea and Samaria, without spending a single night in Tel Aviv, lest they see civilian Israeli society for themselves and find that they like it. They are whisked off to Shechem, Jenin and other PA towns and housed in Arab educational or cultural facilities, or private homes. Local Arab girls are sent to befriend them and they have no choice but to trust them.
It is thus easy, explains Bello, “to carry out a sexual crime against a foreign girl, in her first days away from her family, in a place where no police have ever visited. And this is what happens, and has happened.”
"I was told of such rape cases by women who are not Jewish: a female European leftist activist, a female Red Cross volunteer and a young Arab woman from Yafo,” he says. He says that he met these women when he carried out IDF reserve duty, and met them afterward as well. “They told me what goes on there, in the Palestinian villages, far from any prying eye.”
"These are not just cases of rape carried out to satisfy lust,” he writes. “Usually, they are carried out systematically in order to make the girl pregnant and then take her as a wife – after she converts to Islam, of course. We know about this system from the stories of women who underwent a similar process within Israel and escaped to Europe. But it is hard to escape from the Palestinian territories. Sometimes these women – some of whom are no longer young – are never allowed to leave their homes unaccompanied, in order to forestall their escape.”
If someone were to compare the list of foreign female activists who enter Judea and Samaria to the list of those who leave, Bello claims, the magnitude of the phenomenon would be proven. “Everyone knows about it, but no one dares talk about it. The Palestinians have been turned into martyrs. In the Middle Eastern television channels, IDF soldiers are represented as the brutal rapists, who rape Palestinian women.”
New Israel Fund involvement
The reports by Aloni-Sedovnik and Bello are of particular interest because feminist groups have been spearheading leftist activism in Israel for many years. According to Gila Svirsky, the former director of the New Israel Fund in Israel and founder of NIF-sponsored Women's Coalition for Peace, “women’s peace organizations, known collectively as the Israeli women’s peace movement, became the most vibrant and persistent part of the peace camp in Israel.” These groups espouse an ideology which equates militarism (by Israelis) with male domination of women. Far from being a fringe element, leftist-feminists of this ilk are a dominant force in the Israeli academic world, the press, the Knesset and the judicial system.
British police are ordered to protect 'Doggers' -- homosexuals engaging in public sex
Britain sure has lost it
Police have been ordered to stop anyone taking in part in illegal outdoor sex being abused or verbally taunted as it can cause them to suffer post traumatic stress.
An extraordinary new Hate Crime Guidance Manual has been handed to officers telling them to arrest anyone suspected of committing a hate crime against those engaged in ‘dogging’.
Although it notes that outdoor sex can have an ‘impact on the quality of life of people using these locations for leisure pursuits’ - for example dog walkers and tourists - the rights of those cottaging, cruising or dogging must be taken into account by officers.
It states that even though ‘outdoor sex is unlawful’, people who take part in it still have rights which protect them from becoming victims of hate crime.
The manual, issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers of Scotland last week, states that people who take part in open-air sex are ‘more susceptible to hate crime’ and can suffer ‘post traumatic stress and depression’ if they are abused, Police Review revealed.
The 60-page guide states: 'The issues surrounding public sex environments can be complex and consequently provide a challenge for the police. 'Whilst complaints regarding consensual public sex must be considered and responded to, it must also be noted that people engaging in such activity are potential targets for hate crime perpetrators.'
It states that doggers can be ‘reluctant to report victimisation in outdoor sex environments’ and says this is ‘due to a misconception that the police will primarily be interested in why they were there, as opposed to tackling hate or prejudice motivated crime’.
It goes on to say that hate crime can have a ‘lasting impact on individual victims’, adding that ‘crime targeted at an individual’s core identity also has the potential to undermine entire communities and damage community confidence in the police’.
The guide adds: 'Research has shown that any victim of crime can suffer symptoms of depression, anger, anxiety and post traumatic stress. 'Victims of non-biased crime can experience a decrease in these symptoms within two years (but) victims of bias, or hate crime, may need as long as five years to overcome their ordeal.'
In 2008, the then deputy chief constable of Lancashire Police Michael Cunningham - now the Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police - issued guidance cautioning officers against ‘knee-jerk’ reactions when dealing with doggers and saying they should only be prosecuted as a ‘last resort’.
The most recent changes were made to the ‘Managing Public Sex Environments’ policy last month, and top brass say the policy has been ‘completely re-written’ following consultation with relevant groups and ‘new Association of Chief Police Officer guidance’.
It states that the new policy applies to all cops dealing with ‘public sex environments’, adding that the policy aims to ‘improve our effectiveness and the quality of service provided by the police service when policing public sex environments’ to ensure a ‘consistent, well managed, proportionate and professional approach to public sex environments’ is taken by officers.
The manual says that ‘human rights of all citizens’ must be protected and that the policy covers ‘any open space, public or private that is habitually used for the purpose of engaging in consensual same sex and opposite sex, sexual activity’, including public toilets.
It states that previous policing methods had ‘adversely affected’ the relationship between cops and people having outdoor sex and that the old methods ‘discouraged users from reporting crime to police’, leading to many unreported robberies, assaults and verbal abuse of doggers.
Les Gray, the chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, told Police Review magazine today: 'I do not believe that our officers require a 60-page booklet to tell them that we should carry out our duties without fear, favour, malice or ill will. 'No matter what the circumstances our officers will always do their upmost to prevent crime in the first instance and where a crime has been committed assist the victim and endeavour to detect the culprit.
'Just because someone engages in unusual or different activities it does not preclude them from the protection of the law. 'By the same token it doesn’t mean that they will get more protection by doing so.'
One Kent officer, who did not want to be named, said: 'So now we are being told not just to turn a blind eye to public indecency, we are being told to arrest anyone who has anything bad to say against people taking part in outdoor sex.
'It’s getting to the stage that people who break the law have more rights than the normal man or woman on the street, and as for them suffering from post traumatic stress, what about the people who witness these exhibitions and are shocked by it? What about their rights.'
Hugh McKinney, of the National Family Campaign, said: 'There is a good reason that we have laws against these types of sexual behaviour in public, namely that they are deemed to be beyond what is acceptable to most reasonable people. 'Is it too much for us to expect the police to enforce the law? After all, they’re the only ones who can.'
Chief Constable Ian Latimer, of Scotland’s Northern Constabulary - which patrols the Scottish Highlands - said: 'Hate crime divides our communities and has a devastating effect on victims, their family members and the wider community.
'The manual, developed in consultation with partner agencies and victim support charities gathers best practice and provides officers with guidance on how recognise and investigate hate crime to secure the desired outcome and results for all parties involved.'
Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 those who take part in ‘dogging’, where couples meet up for exhibitionist outdoor sex, and cottaging, where men meet for sex in public lavatories, face arrest for outraging public decency, voyeurism and exposure.
Cosseted British bureaucrats to lose some of their privileges
Millions of public sector staff face working until they are in their 70s to fund gold-plated pension schemes branded 'inherently unfair' by a hard-hitting report, it was claimed last night.
Labour former minister Lord Hutton said state workers – who can currently retire as young as 55 – will be forced to pay more and receive less on retirement. He gave ministers the green light to demand extra pension contributions from staff from as early as April. And his interim report also pronounced the end of final salary schemes – sparking threats of strikes from the unions.
Public sector pensioners could suffer some of the pain that their counterparts in the private sector are already facing. Critics say there is pensions apartheid between the public and private sectors.
Lord Hutton was asked to investigate the public sector pensions crisis by the Coalition. Taxpayers are currently liable for between £770billion and £1trillion in payouts and the gap between annual employee contributions and the promised rewards is running at £10billion a year.
Lord Hutton said that when he published his final recommendations next spring it is his ‘intention’ to suggest that the retirement age should rise in line with life expectancy projections. He said it was ‘logical’ to bring the public sector retirement age into line with the state pension age, which the Government has already said will rise to 68.
Lord Hutton will publish a formula linking public sector retirement age and longevity to ensure civil servants don’t spend nearly 30 years living on pensions.
He said he was ‘nervous’ about fixing a new retirement date for Britain’s six million public sector workers ‘to a definite age because longevity is marching ahead’. He added: ‘I think we’ve got to look at this as a matter of urgency.’
In 1841, someone who reached the age of 60 could expect to live to 74. Today, they will typically die at the age of 84. By 2055, a 65-year-old female public sector worker is predicted to live until she is nearly 95. A man will typically get to 92.
John Prior, of pensions firm Punter Southall, said he predicts the normal retirement age will get to ‘70 at least’. He said: ‘Just because a policeman can’t be on the beat at 55 does not mean that they cannot be doing some other job.’
In a further blow for state workers, they will be forced to start paying more of their salary into a pension scheme, which many currently get virtually for free.
Lord Hutton said the low-paid, understood to be those earning around £21,000, should be protected from higher payments. The Armed Forces, who do not pay a penny into their pension, will also be ring-fenced in the short-term.
But Lord Hutton said there is ‘a strong case’ to increase other contributions for a pension scheme which he yesterday branded as totally unaffordable – and getting more expensive every day.
In his 170-page report, he said that Britain has no choice but to change State workers’ pension schemes, or leave future taxpayers with an unaffordable burden.
He said: ‘It is my clear view that the figures in this report make it plain that the status quo is not tenable.’
That decision gives Chancellor George Osborne political cover to demand higher payments from state workers during the public spending review later this month. He could raise £1billion for every 1 per cent he adds to the payments. Mr Osborne said the report was ‘impressive’ and called for a ‘consensus’ on how to solve the crisis.
In a third blow, the report spells the end for lucrative final salary pensions, which promise to pay workers a percentage of their earnings on retirement. Lord Hutton said they are ‘inherently unfair’ and must be scrapped and replaced with cheaper alternatives, such as a ‘career average’ scheme or one which abandons the link to earnings entirely.
The report lays bare the bleak facts about public sector pensions in a country where less than a third of private sector workers get a company pension. Public sector workers are able to look forward to an average workplace pension of £7,841 – but the majority of private sector workers get nothing.
The report also lifts the lid on the gold-plated retirements of an exclusive bunch of State workers. Nearly 3,000 get a pension of ‘at least £67,000’ a year, with eight in ten of them working for the Health Service. A further 34,252 receive a pension worth ‘at least £37,000’.
By comparison, the majority of single pensioners in Britain, mostly retired private sector workers and stay-at-home mothers, are being forced to survive on pension income of ‘less than £27’ a day.
Lord Hutton’s plans triggered outrage among unions and are likely to lead to strikes. Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union, said: ‘This attack on the people who make this country tick will spark a furious backlash and will drive millions on to the streets in French-style protests to stop the great pensions robbery.’
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said the report represents a ‘grossly unfair’ attack on State workers ‘drawn up on behalf of a Cabinet of millionaires’.
Saudi prince accused in brutal murder of servant finds he's not above the law in Britain
This story is instructive on many levels. First, this Saudi prince likely figured he could beat the murder rap with a few phone calls, intervention from the embassy, and a quick flight back to Riyadh. In other words, he was acting above the law, with his servant entirely subject to his whims, as is clearly shown in an assault caught on surveillance camera at the link to the story below.
Secondly, regarding the "sexual aspect" the report details, as demonstrated by the type of injuries found on the servant's body, one must point out that the consequence of homosexuality under Sharia is often death, in potentially macabre, imaginative ways:
"Gay people should be thrown head first off high buildings and if not killed on hitting the ground, they should be then stoned to death." - Minhaj al-Muslim (The Way of the Muslim)
And Muhammad himself said: "If you find anyone doing as Lot's people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done" (Sunan Abu Dawud 38.4447).
At least, that is the fate that threatens those in Muslim countries who happen not to be princes, or wealthy, or well-connected.
The aforementioned video footage, as well as the coroner's report, suggest the abuse had been going on for some time. Had the servant died in Saudi Arabia, accounts of his death may never have seen the light of day. It would be entirely the prince's word against his. And if he so chose, or found it necessary, the prince could have offered diyya, or blood money prescribed according to Islamic law, in order to get away scot-free.
But in Britain, justice can actually be done for the servant. And so, this case underscores by contrast how Sharia stacks the deck against justice for the poor, marginalized, and vulnerable, who bear the brunt of Sharia's rule more heavily. That includes both the victims, and those accused who cannot buy or schmooze their way out of trouble.
"'Sexual element' in Saudi prince's servant killing," from BBC News, October 4:
A Saudi prince murdered his servant in an attack which had a "sexual element", the Old Bailey has heard.
Bandar Abdulaziz, 32, was found beaten and strangled in the Landmark Hotel, Marylebone, central London, on 15 February.
The court was told Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud had carried out several assaults on the victim before he died.
Mr al Saud, 34, admits manslaughter but denies murder and one count of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
The jury has been asked to decide whether he is guilty of manslaughter or murder.
When the body was found the prince claimed his aide had been attacked and robbed three weeks before his death.
But the jury was told Mr al Saud carried out the killing - and injuries including bite marks to Mr Abdulaziz's face showed the "ferocity of the attack to which he had been subjected".
The prince has claimed he was "friends and equals" with his servant and denied being gay.
Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said: "The evidence establishes quite conclusively that he is either gay or that he has homosexual tendencies.
"It is clear that his abuse of Bandar was not confined simply to physical beatings.
"There is clear evidence, over and above the bite marks, that there was also a sexual element to his mistreatment of the victim."
The court heard that the prince and his aide had been staying together at the hotel since 20 January as part of an extended holiday.
Mr Abdulaziz's body was found with blood on the pillow and the defendant appeared "shocked and upset", the court heard.
Mr al Saud told police officers they had been drinking in the hotel bar until the early hours of the morning before returning to the room and that when he woke at about 1500 GMT he could not rouse the victim.
The prince had tried to clean up some of the blood and wash some of Mr Abdulaziz's bloodstained clothing, Mr Laidlaw said.
'Sexual connotation'
Bloodstains found in the room were "consistent with the victim having been the subject of a series of separate assaults before he was killed", the jury heard.
Asked by police about the injuries suffered by the victim, Mr al Saud said he had been robbed three weeks earlier on Edgware Road, in central London.
But CCTV footage showed the prince attacking his servant in the lift of the hotel on two separate occasions in previous weeks and kicking him outside a restaurant on the night of his death.
The post-mortem examination showed Mr Abdulaziz had suffered heavy blows to his head and face, leaving his left eye closed and swollen, his lips split and his teeth chipped and broken.
There were also injuries to his neck, ears and internal organs, bleeding to the brain and a rib fracture.
"There were bite marks to his cheeks, which had 'an obvious sexual connotation," Mr Laidlaw said.
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.
He judged a man by the colour of his skin rather than by the content of his character
A black judge from western Pennsylvania rejected a plea agreement for a man accused of fighting with police during a traffic stop, saying it was "a ridiculous plea that only goes to white boys."
The plea agreement was for a sentence of three months probation. Allegheny County Judge Joseph Williams said on Tuesday that a black defendant in that situation would not have been treated as leniently.
In court, Williams told Assistant District Attorney Brian Catanzarite that he "for some reason comes up with I think ridiculous pleas whenever it's a young white guy," according to The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "I'm just telling you what my observation is. If this had been a black kid who did the same thing, we wouldn't be talking about three months' probation."
Catanzarite responded that he was standing in for another prosecutor and didn't broker the plea deal. "Now that the court has essentially called me a racist, I think that's unfair. I don't make offers based on race. I make offers based on facts," Catanzarite said, according to the Tribune-Review.
Williams later recused himself from the case, and a white judge accepted the plea agreement for 24-year-old Jeffery McGowan.
The defendant, who had no criminal record, agreed to plead guilty to disorderly conduct. He had faced charges including aggravated assault.
Williams' secretary on Wednesday told The Associated Press the judge does not give interviews. The Allegheny County district attorney's office did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Mike Manko, a spokesman for the district attorney's office, told the Tribune-Review the plea deal was appropriate and agreed to by the officer, who was not injured. "Negotiated pleas are never based on the race of a particular defendant but rather on the behavior of the defendant and the facts associated with that behavior," Manko told the newspaper.
"The assistant district attorneys who handled this plea on behalf of the commonwealth have outstanding reputations, and we firmly stand behind their integrity and the integrity of all of our prosecutors."
Unemployed British man forced to attend 'Back To Work' seminar instead of real job interview to avoid losing benefits
After losing his job, David Sharp was delighted to have a second interview for a sales post and was confident about winning the role. But he claims he had to pull out of the interview thanks to bizarre rules that meant he could not miss a 'Back To Work' class on the same day. Job centre staff warned Mr Sharp, 33, from Huyton, Merseyside, that if he missed the seminar he would lose his benefit money.
Faced with the possibility of having neither a new job nor his dole money, the former bingo caller was forced to cancel his interview. Mr Sharp said: 'I had only been signing on for a few weeks when I got in the running for a business and marketing role in town. 'I did well, but the second interview was at the same time as a course at the Huyton job centre.
'I rang the national 0845 telephone number and was given an ultimatum. Either I attended the course or my benefits would be cancelled. 'I tried to change the interview and they said 'no'. I then offered to show documented proof of my interview to the job centre, but that was no good.'
He added: 'I went on the course and it was pretty mundane, about how to get in touch with employers all stuff I had already done to get the interview. 'I am disappointed with Job Centre Plus. They should have been doing a lot more to help me. 'They stopped me getting a job to put me on a 'Back To Work' course. It was very counterproductive and now I am still unemployed.'
A spokesman for the Department for work and pensions said Mr Sharp had not spoken directly to the Job Centre Plus in Huyton. But they could not rule out the 33-year-old was given incorrect advice over the phone.
West is being 'outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised' by Islamic extremism, warns Blair
The West is being 'outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised' by violent Islamic extremism, Tony Blair has warned.
The former prime minister said that there had been a failure to challenge the 'narrative' that Islam was oppressed by the West which was fuelling extremism around the world.
He said too many people accepted the extremists' analysis that the military actions taken by the West following the 9/11 attacks were directed at countries because they were Muslim and that it supported Israel because Israelis were Jews while Palestinians were Muslims.
'We should wake up to the absurdity of our surprise at the prevalence of this extremism', he said
'Look at the funds it receives. Examine the education systems that succour it. And then measure, over the years, the paucity of our counter-attack in the name of peaceful co-existence. We have been outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised'.
Speaking last night in New York to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Mr Blair warned that it was impossible to defeat extremism 'without defeating the narrative that nurtures it'.
Moderate Muslims who believed in co-existence and tolerance were, he said, being undermined by the unwillingness of the West to take on the extremists' arguments.
'We think if we sympathise with the narrative - that essentially this extremism has arisen as a result, partly, of our actions - we meet it halfway, we help the modernisers to be more persuasive', he said. 'We don't. We indulge it and we weaken them. Worse, a reaction springs up amongst our people that we are pandering to this narrative and they start to resent Muslims as a whole'.
Mr Blair's warning comes as the French issued their most extreme warning in recent years about the dangers of visiting Britain, saying a terrorist attack is ‘very likely’. A dramatic statement on the website of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs adds that visitors need to exercise ‘extreme vigilance’. This is especially so in world famous sites like London’s Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, and on the capital’s public transport system.
While Britain and the USA have already warned people to be careful when travelling in Europe, the French advice is by far the most extreme to date. It invokes the 1990s and early 2000s when Gallic secret agents regularly monitored suspected Islamic radicals in a city referred to by the French as ‘Londonistan’.
The statement was issued after terrorist suspect killed in a drone attack in Pakistan last month was identified as a British man tasked with leading an Al Qaeda group in the UK.
Last week, security agents in France, Britain and Germany warned Al Qaeda terrorists were planning a Mumbai-style atrocity in Europe. The alert was sparked after Ahmad Sidiqi, an Afghan informant said to have known Mohammed Atta, mastermind of the 9/11 2001 attacks, told US interrogators of the chilling plot.
Sidiqi said Ilyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda commander linked to the 2008 attacks in Mumbai in India that left 174 people dead, had told him that teams had already been sent to Europe to launch similar assaults.
The United States and Britain warned their citizens on Sunday of an increased risk of terrorist attacks in Europe, with Washington saying al Qaeda might target transport infrastructure.
Britain raised the terrorism alert level in its advice for travellers to Germany and France to ‘high from ‘general,’ while leaving the threat level at home unchanged at ‘severe’.
This fracas about letting the Bush tax cut expire for those making more than the arbitrary amount of $250K per year is bizarre. Never mind for now that the entire system of taxation in a bona fide free country is criminal–not different, in principle, from a system of serfdom or involuntary servitude. (Taxation had its place in the same systems that were home to these other types of bondage!) But this unrestrained hatred for those who earn more than $250K is rank bigotry, not different from racial, gender and ethnic prejudice at heart.
Well, yes there is a difference, since when men and women become wealthy, this isn’t unavoidable as when they are black or women or from a given background into which they were born. But neither is becoming wealthy something for which anyone ought to be blamed and punished.
It is, after all, no longer the case that behind every great fortune there must be a great crime. That used to be generally true enough when wealth was obtained primarily via conquest, looting, and robbery perpetrated by armies and navies. One of the great discoveries of Adam Smith, the father of modern economic science, is that wealth is much more efficiently created without such methods, by protecting the equal liberty of everyone to produce and trade. Because we are often so radically different from one another, we can easily find opportunities to gain from others while they are also gaining from us. This is one of the benefits of specialization. Understanding this much should be sufficient to reject the notion that anyone needs to be put in servitude to other people so that these others can find what they need and want. A genuine, unbriddled free market place makes that possible, one in which the government with its monopoly on physical force does not try to cherry pick who gets what and how much and when.
Apart, however, of the irrationality of interfering in people’s freedom of production and exchange, there is in this debate about extending the Bush tax cuts to those who make more than $250K a viciousness that should be entirely unwelcome among civilized men and women. This enviousness that many people harbor and which is then taken advantage of by so many politicians–and fueled by their academic instigators such as The New York Times columnist and Princeton University economist Paul Krugman–is neanderthal, barbaric, totally unbecoming of people who live in a complex society and who have only the faintest idea of how others earn their resources. To have cultivated this envy toward those who are economically better off is really no different from cultivating it toward those who have superior talents or other assets in their lives, such as good health and good looks. To pick on such people is totally unjust and pointless.
Some, of course, try to peddle the notion that the very rich really owe it all to society–which is to say, to politicians and law enforcement–as if it were the referees at a game who scored points! But that is a fabrication and rationalization aimed to sooth one’s guilty conscience for harboring the envy of those who happen to be better off. Nothing good can come from it and a lot of ill will and needless acrimony is fostered by it all.
We have a very fine model for understanding economic differences among people in the field of competitive athletics. Sportsmanship is part of it, whereby competitors at all the different levels of achievement and skill live in harmony instead of hating one another and insisting on placing extra burdens on the successful. (Where there is a policy of handicapping it usually serves the purpose of making the sport more appealing to spectators and has nothing to do with equalization!)
I suggest we get rid of this attitude of rich bashing once and for all and shame those who refuse to do so instead of exploiting their attitude for political purposes.
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.
This is a real dilemma. I myself had a free-range childhood but my own son was rarely without a watchful eye on him during his childhood. So I can see both sides of the argument. I suspect that the society-wide decay of morality in all senses has in fact made a more protective role for parents a rational response
The food-faddist aspect of childcare is however driven more by misguided convictions than by social pressures, as far as I can see. One of the first things my son learned to say when he was a toddler was his McDonald's order! And there were always plenty of other kids in the store with perfectly respectable parents in attendance
New York journalist Lenore Skenzay let her 9-year-old son Izzy ride the subway by himself. The result was nothing short of hysterical. The syndicated columnist and her travelling tot suddenly found themselves at the centre of a media storm that saw Skenazy tarred as a Bad Mother for audiences from Chile to China and even Malta.
If there had been a handy pond nearby I’m sure there would have been at least one conservative commentator willing to find out whether she floated.
Skenazy is the author of “Free Range Kids”: her thesis being that we should untangle parenting from irrational fear and bring a certain rationality to the business of kid raising.
Her book can be traced in a line of work that could be dubbed the Bad Mommy genre of confessional writing that has emerged in the last few years that has sought to offer a counterpoint to the frenzied, goal-focused, perfectionist mantra of motherhood that has become the acceptable standard of being a Good Parent.
Skenazy’s controversial ideas are interesting given she has joined a growing number of writers whose view on the changing emphasis placed on parenthood, especially motherhood, has exposed the feverish flush of anxiety and control that now is popularly seen to be mandatory.
Novelist Ayelet Waldman was largely ahead of the curve, with her now infamous essay for the New York Times in 2005 in which she admitted that the passionate, intense love that consumed her was that which she felt for her husband, not her four children.
“If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children,” Waldman wrote.
In her piece, Waldman frets over whether allowing her husband (novelist Michael Chabon) to occupy a central place in her emotional world makes her a failure.
“I am the only woman in Mommy and Me who seems to be, well, getting any. This could fill me with smug sense of well-being. I could sit in the room and gloat over my wonderful marriage. I could think about how our sex life - always vital, even torrid - is more exciting and imaginative now than it was when we first met. I could check my watch to see if I have time to stop at Good Vibrations to see if they have any exciting new toys. I could even gaze pityingly at the other mothers in the group, wishing that they too could experience a love as deep as my own.”
“But I don’t. I am far too busy worrying about what’s wrong with me. Why, of all the women in the room, am I the only one who has not made the erotic transition a good mother is supposed to make? Why am I the only one incapable of placing her children at the center of her passionate universe?”
Waldman went on to turn her musings into a book called (what else?) “Bad Mother” which hit bookshelves last year. Reflecting on the brouhaha that conflagrated in the wake of her original piece and the surge in the number of books in the “Bad Mom” genre, Waldman told the New York Times: “There has been a backlash against that ‘perfect mother,’ and now people are starting to ache for a more realistic way to define women and motherhood.”
Her book has been joined by a number of titles by well-known women who have shared their confusion, angst and downright need for a drink since becoming mothers.
Founder of phenomenally popular blog, Dooce.com (it attracts 7 million hits a month), Heather Armstrong recently published a book called, “It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita”.
Actress Dani Klein wrote “Afterbirth: Stories You Won’t Read in a Parenting Magazine”.
All of these books in some way reinforce the idea of motherhood being a pursuit that leaves one perpetually open to a mass of potential criticism and judgement, while floundering in the midst of a deeper personal crisis.
“To be a mother—even simply to be a woman—in today’s world is to be made exhausted and resentful by a role or set of roles that we don’t recall deliberately choosing,” Sandra Tsing-Loh commented in an article for The Atlantic entitled On Being a Bad Mother.
Tsing-Loh says of her poor- by modern standards sort of parenting: “I am bad, not in that fluttery, anxious, 21st-century way educated middle-class mothers consider themselves ‘failures’ because they snap when they are tired, because they occasionally feed their kids McNuggets, because as they journal they soulfully question whether they’re mindfully attaining a proper daily work/life balance.”
What this genre of writing reflects is the cultural renegotiation we are currently experiencing about what being a decent parent means.
Whether some might think being a bad parent means feeding your kids fresh-from-the-box Mac’n’cheese or letting them catch the 380 to Bondi, take comfort from the fact there are a growing number of parents who think you’re doing a good job.
Policeman abandoned unconscious man to die by side of road... and then lied to hide his actions. Australians tend to see the British generally as work-shy and that certainly applies to their police
A policeman who left an unconscious man to die by the side of a road before inventing a story to cover his tracks has been found guilty of misconduct.
Former traffic officer Pc David Driver, 36, wrote false witness statements in his notebook after he found out 26-year-old Steven Hathaway had died. He told bosses he had spoken to Mr Hathaway and his friend who were outside a house in the picturesque Cotswold village of Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire.
But in fact Mr Hathaway had been comatose from drink and drugs and his friend barely able to stand when Driver left them in the middle of a freezing night on Valentine's Day last year. Less than an hour later Mr Hathaway died at the scene.
On Tuesday Driver admitted misconduct in a public office on the first day of his trial at Worcester Crown Court. The court heard Mr Hathaway might have survived if Driver had called an ambulance.
David Jackson, prosecuting, said an inquest had yet to be held but added: 'There is evidence that the cold had been a contributory factor, which Driver should have been aware of and acted upon. 'That doesn't make him legally responsible for the death, but it is a relevant factor.'
Driver was an officer for Gloucestershire Police when he spotted Mr Hathaway and another man lying on a pavement outside a house in Moore Road, Bourton-on-the-Water at 1.30am on Valentine's Day last year. He spoke to Mr Hathaway's friend who was also drunk before leaving them.
Ten minutes later a passing motorist saw the men and dialled 999 and two different police officers attended the scene. They called an ambulance but paramedics could not detect a pulse for Mr Hathaway and he was pronounced dead at 2.35am.
Judge Alistair McGreath said Driver 'panicked' after learning of Mr Hathaway's death and concocted a false report to cover his back. He said: 'He [Driver] said they were both capable and, critically, that neither of them were unconscious and incapably lying on the ground.'
Following Mr Hathaway's death, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (PICC) launched an investigation and Driver resigned from Gloucestershire Police. In February he pleaded guilty to neglecting his duty as a police officer and perverting the course of justice.
On Tuesday Judge McGreath adjourned the case and bailed Driver before sentencing on November 12. He told him: 'It is important that you understand I will pass on you the sentence that is appropriate on the information that I have. 'Being out on bail says nothing at all about what that sentence will be.'
Any conviction for rape in Britain would have to be regarded as unsafe unless there were independant witnesses actually present at the time
A horsewoman who claimed her boyfriend fed her a Pringles sandwich laced with diazepam to make her drowsy before raping her is facing jail. Kate Woodhead’s fiction extended to salacious details about him being ‘turned on’ as he pulled off her jodhpurs, a court heard. But after a three-week trial, a jury decided that her story was a pack of lies.
She made it up to get back at Porsche-driving Paul Joseph because she feared he was having an affair and thought he was about to walk out on her, Guildford Crown Court heard. During the case she was granted anonymity under an order made by the judge. But this was lifted when she was convicted.
The court heard that Mr Joseph, an IT consultant, divorced his wife in 2007 to be with Woodhead, who ran a business providing horses and carriages for weddings. They moved into a rented lodge with a stable block in Wisley, Surrey.
In the early hours of April 10 last year Woodhead went with a friend to a police station to accuse Mr Joseph of rape. She told officers she would pursue her complaint only if they promised not to approach her boyfriend until after she had sorted out her affairs, including the house.
She went home in a ‘friendly and jovial mood’, the jury was told, and the couple continued to share the house and enjoy sex while he remained in ignorance of what was happening behind his back.
The friend who accompanied her to the police station told the court Woodhead said she intended to make Mr Joseph pay for the ‘other woman’ and he ‘wouldn’t know what had hit him’.
Prosecutor Hugh Forgan said: ‘The allegation of rape is entirely fictitious. The pair had a topsy-turvy relationship and at the time of the allegation they were sleeping in separate beds. ‘However they still had a sex life, in fact she even had sex with him the day after going to the police crying rape.’
Their relationship ended after a furious row when Mr Joseph found a large number of condoms in a drawer and became convinced Woodhead was selling herself for sex. Woodhead kicked him out, changed the locks and obtained a court order banning him from the premises.
She packed his belongings, including a top-of-the-range Bang and Olufsen stereo, expensive art prints, and the desk from his study, into a horsebox. They were driven away and were never seen again.
In another ‘malicious’ act, she lied to the DVLA, transferring ownership of his Porsche Carrera and BMW motorbike to her name, intending to sell them. She was arrested after her friend went back to the police to tell them she thought the rape scenario was made up. The rape allegation against Mr Joseph was dropped and no action taken against him.
Cross-examining Mr Joseph, Andrew Turton, defending Woodhead, suggested that he made her a sandwich of Pringles and diazepam, then when she became drowsy he carried her to bed, and was ‘turned on’ by removing her jodhpurs before having sex with her without her consent.
Mr Joseph said: ‘A Pringle sandwich laced with diazepam must have been the driest ever. You’d think you could taste it. I wouldn’t eat it.’
The jury found Woodhead guilty of perverting the course of justice, fraud and two counts of theft. She had denied all the charges. Remanding her on bail until sentencing next month, Judge Neil Stewart said a custodial sentence was ‘almost inevitable’.
A great sermon by an American rabbi below. "Ehr Kumt" is Yiddish ("Er kommt" in High German) -- meaning "He is coming", referring first to Hitler and now to his modern-day ilk
I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred - but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped - but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn't know it from our behavior. During WWII we didn't refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn't call the Gestapo, militants. We didn't see the attacks on our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people.
We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein, nor for D-Day.
Evil - ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis - most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense - I didn't know." Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win... to rid the world of malevolence.
We are at war. yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don't put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.
"Shalom," he said. "Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania."
"Yes," I replied. "It was quite a powerful experience." "Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?"
"Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon." His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. "Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child."
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. "I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul" (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin's mentor - he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued "When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. `EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL - He's coming. Jews abandon your city.' "
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not."
We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack - our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably - I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don't worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent - thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil. I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little time left he shared the following - "Shal. I am ready to leave this earth."
"Sure I'd like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I've had it. I'm done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become."
This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist Triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. - Yet his twilight observation was - "The worst is yet to come." And he wanted out.
I share my father's angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.
"Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You're sounding like Glen Beck. It's not that bad. It's not that real."
But I am here to tell you - "It is." Ask the member of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target - pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.
Ask them, ask all of them - ask the American GI's we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation package. Ask them if it's bad. Ask them if it's real.
Did anyone imagine in the 1920's what Europe would look like in the 1940's.
Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture?
Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris, Bialystok, Minsk, knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz?
The sages teach - "Aizehu chacham - haroeh et hanolad - Who is a wise person - he who sees into the future." We dare not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and na‹ve sense of security.
We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the offenders.
Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience.
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.
On August 10, a major victory for freedom of speech was achieved. President Obama signed the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act (SPEECH Act) into law, stopping Americans from being sued for libel by individuals in other countries with inadequate First Amendment rights. The legislation is a defeat for those who would seek to silence Americans speaking out against radical Islam by threatening to bankrupt them with costly lawsuits.
The story of the SPEECH Act starts with Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, the director of the American Center for Democracy, who bravely stood up to a Saudi billionaire named Khalid bin Mahfouz who she accused of financing terrorist groups in her book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed–and How to Stop It. Mahfouz, who died of a heart attack on August 16, 2009, targeted Ehrenfeld with a lawsuit as he had done to other authors accusing him of having ties to terrorism.
Taking advantage of the United Kingdom’s libel laws that force the defendant to prove their accusations in court, Mahfouz sued 45 publishers and journalists and all settled, except for Dr. Ehrenfeld. The U.N. Human Rights Committee even reported in 2008 that the laws “discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work, including through the phenomenon known as ‘libel tourism.’”
The result is that authors and publishers become unwilling to write about characters such as Mahfouz, aware of the cost that a lengthy legal case brings. Those targeted with such lawsuits have great difficulty finding work, as potential employers want to avoid meeting the same fate. This tactic, called “lawfare,” is very effective for nefarious organizations and individuals with the means of suing less wealthy critics into bankruptcy.
Ehrenfeld did not live in the U.K., and did not publish or even promote her book there. However, Mahfouz was able to justify the lawsuit because 23 copies of the book were bought there online. She reacted to the lawsuit by refusing to participate in the proceedings, arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction. As a result, she lost by default and she countersued from the United States saying her rights were being violated. The New York Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in her favor, and the state passed the Libel Terrorism Protection Act, often referred to as “Rachel’s Law.” Illinois, Florida, California, Maryland, Utah and Tennessee followed.
Dr. Ehrenfeld’s allegations against Mahfouz have a solid foundation. Mahfouz founded the Muwaffaq Foundation that was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a financier of Al-Qaeda. The individual chosen by Mahfouz to run the charity, Yassin al-Qadi, was also blacklisted for his links to Al-Qaeda and Hamas.
“The Muwafaq Foundation provided logistical and financial support for a mujahidin battalion in Bosnia…A number of individuals employed by or otherwise associated with the Muwafaq Foundation have connections to various terrorist organizations,” a November 2001 letter from the Treasury Department stated. It also accuses the charity of financing Hamas and Abu Sayyaf, an Al-Qaeda affiliate in the Philippines.
The 9/11 Commission Report also substantiates Ehrenfeld’s allegations. It does not mention Mahfouz, but it refers to a Gulf fundraising operation called the “Golden Chain” that funded Bin Laden from 1996 to 1998. Operatives connected to the network were arrested in 2002 in Bosnia with a document listing members of the “Golden Chain,” including Mahfouz.
The charity had been accused of sponsoring terrorism as early as 1995 by Africa Confidential, but the publication apologized and settled after being sued. Mahfouz admitted that he donated over $270,000 to Osama Bin Laden’s organization during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan after being approached by one of Bin Laden’s brothers. Extensive documentation exists of the links between the Muwafaq Foundation and terrorism all the way back to the mid-1990s.
Mahfouz also has a troubled history. He agreed to pay $225 million to settle fraud charges in 1993 after the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which he owned one-third of, was closed in 1991 because of its money laundering. Mahfouz denies any fault, saying his settling was just a “business decision.”
Terrorism expert and best-selling author Richard Miniter told FrontPage that these public records don’t make much of a difference in Britain when it comes to libel lawsuits. The defendant is required to prove their reporting in the court of law, going beyond citing such public documents. In the process, they must take on legal expenses that will likely lead them to financial ruin. This possibility is leading to self-censorship, he warned.
“It is a threat that hung over every writer,” Miniter said, adding that this was just one method in an overall lawfare strategy by Islamists.
“There is a constant effort by Islamic organizations, like the Muslim Brotherhood, to use America’s legal system against us, like they used our airplanes against us on 9/11,” he said. The goal is to punish anyone publicly standing against their agenda.
Now, the federal government has passed the SPEECH Act without a single dissenting vote, undermining those who would seek to use their wealth and power to intimidate whistleblowers like Dr. Ehrenfeld.
“For the first time, someone has blunted one of their attacks. All of our action has been defensive, and that’s why this is so important, that’s why it’s a major victory,” Miniter said.
This isn’t just a victory for her, but a victory for all Americans who believe in speaking out against ill-intentioned foreigners.
Victims of anti-social behaviour can name and shame police who don't help them, says British government crime boss
Home Secretary Theresa May is ordering police to 'reclaim the streets' from louts they have allowed to run riot. Anyone who feels to have been repeatedly ignored by officers when complaining about loutish behaviour will be given new powers to demand action.
Officers will also be instructed to treat vandalism and low-level thuggery as a crime - rather than 'anti-social behaviour' which is the problem of town halls.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail on the eve of her speech to the Tory conference, Mrs May revealed that the public will be given formal rights to complain to superiors if police do not respond to multiple complaints.
It is hoped that the prospect of an officer being named in a complaint by a harassed member of the public will lead to thuggish behaviour being treated far more seriously.
The Home Secretary's decision follows a blistering report by Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, who said police have staged a 30-year 'retreat from the streets'. Sir Denis O'Connor said that, as a result, the 'disease' of anti-social behaviour had been allowed to blight Britain.
Mrs May said she wanted to get rid of the term 'anti-social behaviour' - which was largely coined by the last Labour government. Instead, it should be called what it is - 'crime and disorder', she said.
'By calling it anti-social behaviour, it made it seem less important and it made it seem less of a crime. It is a crime. Dealing with this is about cutting crime and the job of the police is cutting crime. 'Part of the problem is that people feel they are reporting things that are wrong but they are not seeing any action. As a society we need to reclaim the streets, and part of that is about police being on the streets and being visible.'
In her speech today, Mrs May will spell out how police will face a formal investigation by the local Community Safety Partnership if they ignore repeated pleas for help from the public. The partnership - a panel which includes local police chiefs - will then have to explain what action is being taken to new locally-elected police commissioners.
It is a direct response to the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her disabled 18-year-old daughter. Miss Pilkington, who was being tormented by a gang of youths, made 33 desperate 999 calls over seven years. But she was accused of 'over-reacting' and, unable to bear the torment any more, she killed herself and her daughter by setting fire to their car near their home in Barwell, Leicestershire.
Mrs May will announce the appointment of Baroness Newlove - whose husband Garry was murdered after standing up to drunken vandals - as the Government's new 'champion for active, safer communities'.
She will say: 'Too often we hear stories of victims who are passed from pillar to post, from the police to environmental services to the housing department before being passed back to the police again. 'We hear about victims who call the police on dozens of occasions but aren't taken seriously and in many cases are ignored altogether. So as part of our reforms to antisocial behaviour powers, we will give victims and communities the right to force the authorities to take action where they fail to do so.'
The HMIC's study found millions of acts of drunken loutishness and vandalism are going unreported as they have become 'normalised'.
The basic task of keeping the peace had been relegated to a 'second-order consideration' for officers who were obsessed with meeting targets for recorded crimes, he added.
The 'Stop the Rot' report showed that last year, 3.5million acts of anti-social behaviour were reported. But this represents only one in four of the estimated real total, meaning an astonishing 14million such incidents were carried out - one every two seconds.
The report warned that police forces are routinely ignoring thousands of repeat victims of harassment and thuggery. Forces often mark such calls as 'low priority' because they do not qualify as crimes. As a result, no action is taken.
A separate HMIC report in July found that just 11 per cent of officers are visible and available to the public at any one time, and more were available on Monday morning than when they might most be needed, on Saturday nights when there is more drunken aggression.
Mrs May indicated she will forge ahead with plans to scrap the antisocial behaviour order, which she said had become a badge of honour among thugs. She wants to replace the Asbo with a far simpler, less bureaucratic punishment to keep thugs in check.
Labour introduced a multitude of policies aimed at combating antisocial behaviour, including Asbos. But last year Home Secretary Alan Johnson admitted Labour had 'coasted' on the issue.
The lengths you need to go to in order to get help against louts in Britain
Mother stands in front of train
When a gang of drunken football yobs began hurling foul abuse at a mother and her five-year-old son on a train, she presumed someone would intervene. But the driver refused to call the police or stop the train and the guard was nowhere to be seen.
Faced with giving in or standing up to the 30-strong group, Lisa Robinson decided to take them on.
When the train reached her station she got off and stood in front of it, refusing to move until the driver called police. Rail company Arriva then terminated the train there, leaving the abusive fans to make their own way home.
Yesterday Mrs Robinson said: ‘It was a terrifying experience, but I’m glad I did it. It was a victory for ordinary people.’
The 41-year-old mother had been on a day out with her husband Peter, 61, and their son Harry to celebrate his fifth birthday. The couple, civil servants from Ystrad Mynach near Caerphilly in South Wales, had taken Harry to Cardiff before returning home on the Arriva service.
As they boarded the two-carriage train on Saturday September 25, they realised it was full of drunken Cardiff City fans who had just seen their team beat Millwall.
The family tried to ignore the shouting and swearing hooligans, but when the train arrived at a station and the gang began abusing a woman on the platform, Mrs Robinson decided to intervene. ‘I walked down to the group and asked the main perpetrator to stop swearing,’ she said. ‘They then turned their abuse on me, calling me a ‘‘dyke’’ and a string of four-letter words.
‘Nobody said anything. I was terrified. I wanted to alert the guard, but there was no way into the next carriage so we were completely trapped. ‘Then they swore at my husband, who was sitting with Harry, and taunted him about his age. By the time the train set off again I was crying and shaking.’ She was so frightened she pulled the emergency handle at the next station.
But she said that when the driver got into the carriage, he simply reset the alarm and went back to drive the train, ignoring her husband’s request to call the police.
Mrs Robinson added: ‘The train carried on for another two stops, with the abuse continuing, until it arrived at our station, Ystrad Mynach. When I got off I had Harry in my arms and he was crying. The driver completely ignored us and told us to take it up with the guard. We had not seen one for the entire journey – I think he had been too frightened to intervene.
‘It was then I decided to take direct action. I spoke to the driver who again ignored me – he wouldn’t even take his sunglasses off to talk to me. ‘So I handed Harry to Peter, got on to the tracks and stopped the train from leaving the station. Some of the football yobs got off to give me more abuse and take pictures of me on their mobiles.’
She said the guard then appeared and asked her to move, which she refused to do. She eventually moved after the station controller promised her he would not move the train and that the police would be called. Two British Transport Police officers arrived and, after discussions with railway officials, the train was terminated.
Mrs Robinson said yesterday that she was glad she had made a stand and would do it again. ‘I think too often these yobs are allowed to get away with it,’ she added. ‘When the thugs started kicking off, one woman said to me that I should accept it as it was just the world we live in. But I refuse to live in a society where this sort of thing goes unpunished.
‘Arriva sent me flowers and apologies, but what they really need to do is plan to make sure these things don’t happen. They knew there was a football game on and should have laid on extra staff. Instead, they had one guard who I’m convinced was hiding in the other carriage. ‘I still can’t believe the driver ignored my husband when he asked him to phone the police.’
Peter Northcott, head of stations at Arriva Trains Wales, said: ‘We take all complaints very seriously and I personally contacted Mr and Mrs Robinson on the day of this incident. A full investigation is taking place with the British Transport Police.’
A spokesman for British Transport Police said: ‘Inquiries, including viewing CCTV and speaking to witnesses who were on the train, which was travelling between Penarth and Bargoed, are ongoing.’
CHANGES to discipline in state prisons have sparked an outbreak of crime at one of Queensland's highest-security jails. The Courier-Mail can reveal a spate of incidents at Maryborough Correctional Centre since controversial changes to the disciplinary process were implemented across Queensland four months ago.
In one incident at the medium-to-high-security facility – which houses 479 male inmates – a female prison nurse was allegedly assaulted by one of Queensland's most violent criminals. The nurse suffered facial injuries, including two black eyes, when a prisoner serving an indefinite sentence for attempted murder allegedly attacked the nurse with a bottle on August 26.
A prison officer, who did not want to be named for fear of losing their job, said prison management had broken protocol because the inmate was not transferred to another jail. "That nurse is still medicating that prisoner," the officer told The Courier-Mail.
Police did not receive a formal complaint until September 17 – three weeks after it happened.
Corrective Services Minister Neil Roberts refused to comment on the assault, but said the nurse had continued to work in the same area as the offender "under staff supervision". Corrective Services was considering transferring the inmate to another facility, he said.
In another alarming incident at Maryborough, prison sources say management waited two days before acting on reports from prison officers that two inmates had been seen on CCTV "shooting up" (injecting drugs intravenously) in a prison laundry on September 11. The delayed search failed to find evidence of the crime. Two inmates were also seen injecting drugs in a prison yard on June 5, the minister confirmed.
The Queensland Public Sector Union and prison staff blame the rise in incidents on a new Breach of Discipline process which they say has stripped staff of authority. QPSU organiser David McInnes said the change in philosophy "came out of nowhere". Mr McInnes said that until recently "mini-hearings" for inmates who committed offences were conducted by correctional supervisors at any time of the day or night, but now they were heard by a manager during office hours. "At the end of the day (management) is generally perceived as being softer in terms of consequences," he said.
"Management at Woodford are all over it and coping well, but at Wacol they've got big problems with breaches (of discipline) lapsing. Management is running around asking them to not (discipline) prisoners."
A prison officer said inmates had "gained the upper hand" since the power shift. "(Management) are in an admin block and spend hardly any time face to face with prisoners. We're there dealing with them daily," the officer said. "(Prisoners) are pushing the boundaries with their verbal abuse and we've got to be nice to them and treat them with respect. "The prisoners' behaviour, knowing that their punishment is going to be minor, just seems to be getting worse.
Director of the Office of the Commissioner for Corrections, Ross McSwain, gave conflicting responses, denying there was a new disciplinary policy, but admitting there had been changes in procedure. Mr McSwain admitted a review late last year had led to managers replacing correctional supervisors in the disciplinary process.
He said elevating the breach hearings to a manager was designed to ensure greater impartiality and separate the roles of prison officers from managers when investigating incidents. "Maintaining an appropriate level of consistency of penalties has been part of the changes."
Opposition prisons spokesman Vaughan Johnson said jails were not being run in accordance with government policy. "There have been other incidents that have left staff scratching their heads as to who's running the prison," he said.
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.
Muslim woman fired from British estate agency for REFUSING to wear a headscarf
Hmmmm... I am inclined to think that any business has a right to set down dress standards required at work. That fact that the same standard was not required of non-Muslim employees rather destroys that defence, however -- JR
A Muslim woman has been awarded more than £13,500 after she was sacked for refusing to wear a headscarf at the estate agency where she worked. Ghazala Khan - a 31-year-old non-practising Muslim - was fired less than two weeks into her job at a company run by traditional Muslim businessman Masood Ghafoor simply because she refused to cover her hair.
Mr Ghafoor told Miss Khan, who had nine years experience in the trade, that his wife and female relatives all wore full veils or burkas, telling her that her parents had given her 'far too much freedom'.
A tribunal heard that Miss Khan had been employed to run Mr Ghafoor's Go Go Real Estate office in Leeds, West Yorkshire, in June 2009. However, within days of working there she was left feeling 'very uncomfortable and intimidated' when Mr Ghafoor put it to her that she had not been brought up as a 'good Muslim' and that if she had been his daughter she would not be allowed to work and would have been long since 'married off'.
He asked her to wear a headscarf at work - even though white non-Muslim women he employed in the same office were never asked to and never did. On the day she was due to start her third week in the job, Mr Ghafoor told her not to bother coming in.
When she eventually caught up with him later that evening he told her that members of the Muslim community had been 'gossiping' and suggested that she was not 'respectable' and that there might be 'something going on' between her and members of staff.
Mr Ghafoor added that his cousin Shakeel, who was also employed in the office, was unhappy working with a female especially as she did not wear a headscarf, was not religious and was Westernised.
Graduate Miss Khan, who represented herself at the hearing in Leeds, won her claim for discrimination on the grounds of her lack of religion or belief, by dismissing her and sex discrimination.
She has been awarded £13,566.67 for injury to feelings, loss of earnings and unpaid holiday pay. The tribunal concluded: 'Ms Khan described herself as British Pakistani, meaning that she is of Asian racial origin and of Pakistani national origin. 'She also described herself as a non-practising Muslim, meaning that she identified with the Muslim religon but did not attend her local mosque, pray regularly or cover her hair. 'The respondent on the other hand is a practising Muslim with traditional religious and cultural beliefs.'
The tribunal heard that at her job interview Miss Khan had worn a grey pinstripe trouser suit, described as 'conventional modern professional dress'.
Mr Ghafoor wanted her to run the office when he was out on business, telling her he wanted 'someone professional in the front office' and she began work there on June 17 last year.
The tribunal heard that Mr Ghafoor had originally told Miss Khan there was no problem with the way she dressed. 'He was happy that she was fully covered up by the black trousers and long sleeved blouses and tops that she wore to work,' the tribunal heard. 'By the time of the hearing, he was saying that she had chosen to wear clothing of a very revealing nature.'
After sacking Miss Khan on June 30, Mr Ghafoor went on to acknowledge that Miss Khan had not done anything wrong at work and that it was not her fault. 'He was happy with her work, it was just that they could not have a woman working in the office,' the tribunal ruled.
'He added that they had had a 'problem' like that before with what he described as a Westernised young Muslim Asian woman working there. 'They had dismissed her too after a few days for essentially the same reason. 'In her case, however, the respondent had found her another job in a friend's office.
The tribunal concluded: 'We find that the respondent treated the claimant less favourably by dismissing her and not his white women employees because she would not cover her hair. 'That refusal on Ms Khan's part was owing to a lack of belief that her religion obliged her to do so.
'Whilst she identified with the Muslim faith, she did not agree with its practices as applied to women. 'That was the ground for her dismissal, although it can be said that the refusal to wear a headscarf was simply a manifestation of a lack of belief. 'We do not think, however, that such a narrow interpretation is appropriate on these facts.
'For the authorities indicate that an employer is entitled to maintain a 'secular' workplace by eluding manifestations of religious belief from working practices and dress, if it deems it appropriate in the circumstances. 'We can see no reason why that principle should not apply to an employee in the circumstances of this case. 'Further, we decided that a purely cultural interpretation of the requirement to wear a headscarf was too narrow.
'We agree with Ms Khan that the requirement is a mixture of the cultural and the religious in so far as it is derived from a particular interpretation of Islamic scriptures.
'As for sex discrimination, there was direct evidence that Ms Khan's sex as a woman played a part in the decision to dismiss. 'Cousin Shakeel did not want to work with a Muslim woman who did not cover her hair. 'The covering is an expression of female modesty. 'He would have treated any male employee more favourably by working with him, all other things being equal. 'Accordingly we found that the discrimination was equally on the ground of the claimant's sex.'
The tribunal concluded: 'Our impression of Ms Khan was of an articulate young woman who genuinely needed a job and would not have behaved in the way described by Mr Ghafoor.'
Mr Ghafoor was cleared of race discrimination as the tribunal ruled he would have treated black or white female converts the same as he treated Ms Khan.
One autistic kid used as an excuse for another intrusion into family life
He should be running around laughing and playing with the other children at his nursery.
But because he watches so much TV, one three-year-old boy has already become cut off from his peers, trapped in his own ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ world instead.
The toddler, known only as Max, has spent so long watching the show that he barely speaks to other children at his nursery school and instead wanders around in a daze obsessively repeating phrases from the TV programme.
He watches the cartoon for as many as five hours a day – and doctors fear that it has had a long-term effect on his development and communication skills.
The programme is full of catchphrases, such as the character Thomas saying he wants to be a ‘really useful engine’ and exclaiming ‘well bust my buffers’, or those of his faithful coaches Annie and Claribel ‘We feel so full,we feel so full’.
Another well-known phrase goes ‘Silly old Gordon fell in the ditch, fell in the ditch, fell in the ditch,’ from the episode which shows the big green engine purposely running into a ditch to avoid pulling a goods’ train.
The boy, who lives in the U.S, is being treated by a specialist in California. Doctors are so alarmed that they have reported his behaviour in a paper published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.
The youngster’s mother reportedly lets him watch as much TV as he likes. He also likes to watch the Disney Channel, which includes popular programmes such as Hannah Montana and Phineas and Ferb.
However, his case is by no means unique and experts warn that children who watch too much television may be in danger of suffering learning difficulties later on.
Some doctors believe the problem is becoming so widespread that toddlers younger than two should be banned from watching any TV at all.
Researchers in Britain fear that television is increasingly hindering children’s communication skills and ability to concentrate as well as contributing to rates of obesity, because screen-based activities mean they are less inclined to be physically active.
They are considering drawing up strict guidelines which could even advise parents to ban toddlers from watching TV.
Stuart Biddle is chairman of the ‘sedentary behaviour and obesity’ working party, which is currently considering guidelines for the Department of Health. He said: ‘We are considering what guidelines should say, and a statement around no television for the under-twos is potentially one of the more controversial ones.’
Some countries are already considering a similar policy. last year, the Australian government began drawing up guidance suggesting a ban for children under two. The advice, which is being finalised, also recommends that those aged between two and five should watch a maximum of one hour a day.
France has also banned any programmes specifically being made for those under five.
Don't read Newsweek magazine while drinking a beverage. A spit take is the obvious first reaction to a column by Julia Baird headlined "The Shame of Family Films." On the Internet, this article is coded as "Why Family Films Are So Sexist."
Baird's denunciation of Hollywood's fraction of decent entertainment began: "They have all been smash hits: 'Finding Nemo,' 'Madagascar,' 'Ice Age,' 'Toy Story.' Fish, penguins, rats, stuffed animals, talking toys. All good innocent family fun, right? Sure, except there are few female characters in those films. There are certainly few doing anything meaningful or heroic -- and no, Bo Peep doesn't count."
So what does feminist bean-counting have to do with whether a movie is "good innocent family fun"? Did any young girl come away from "Finding Nemo" feeling like the memory-challenged Ellen DeGeneres fish character didn't represent female empowerment effectively? Were they offended by the oppressively archaic stereotype of Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl during "Toy Story 2"? Families can't enjoy these films without expecting them to pass some politically correct quota exam?
The Newsweek columnist was promoting a new study from Stacy Smith and Marc Choueiti of the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism at the University of Southern California. They reportedly analyzed 122 family films (rated G, PG and PG-13), including 50 top-grossing ones, between 2006 and 2009. She found it "startling" that there is "only one female character to every three male characters in family movies." (Well, not exactly -- they claim 29.2 percent of characters were female.)
Worse than that, Baird the Angry Feminist protested, "The female characters were also more likely than men to be beautiful." Well, that's scandalously unfair! (Don't think Baird wouldn't also protest if a certain number of women were ugly beyond repair.)
There's more. One in five female characters were "portrayed with some exposed skin between the mid-chest and upper thigh regions." If a conservative tried to suggest "The Little Mermaid" should put on a shirt, tell me Newsweek wouldn't point fingers and laugh. But that's what Newsweek's Angry Feminist is suggesting.
Baird was especially upset that cartoons might exaggerate the female physique: "One in four women was shown with a waist so small that, the authors concluded, it left 'little room for a womb or any other internal organs.' Maybe we could carry them in our purses?" Baird even claimed "another study" found "women in G-rated films wear the same amount of skimpy clothing as women in R-rated films."
That just sounds ludicrous. Anyone wanting to check on Baird's academic assertions would have trouble, since these two studies she's referring to cannot be found on the Annenberg School website or anywhere else online. The Annenberg study was commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which has been compiling data on women in film. Davis, the actress who most recently played the president on ABC, told Newsweek that 17 percent of animators are female, and women form 17 percent of crowd scenes in family films. Only 17 percent of narrators are female.
Ridiculous -- and funny, too. How nit-pickingly intricate are these studies to count genders in "crowd scenes"? WHO CARES? As for only 17 percent of females being narrators, does Davis find it distasteful if her husband reads a bedtime story?
But Davis isn't done with her feminist footnotes. She also claims research shows that the more TV a girl watches, the fewer options she believes she has in life, and the more a boy watches, the more his views become sexist. A look at the Geena Davis Institute website shows that her group is marshaling feminist research attacking on all of these fronts -- the dearth of female characters, animators, directors and so on -- with the entire panoply of TV and movies, not just the family films.
There's nothing wrong with seeking more female directors, producers or major characters in Hollywood -- they're supposed to be feminist enough to have already imposed "affirmative action." But for Newsweek to single out family films as somehow shameful is beyond unfair -- especially since none of them are truly singled out. Tell us how "Finding Nemo" or "Toy Story" are the work of sexist pigs.
Baird isn't just an Angry Feminist; she's a hypocrite, too. Last year, her own magazine tried to embarrass Sarah Palin by putting an old photo of her on the cover in running shorts, suggesting this Caribou Barbie wasn't ready for prime time. Did Baird protest? No, she defended the cover since Palin "has been photographed and filmed more than once in aerobic gear."
California Death Penalty Once Again Thwarted by Thug Huggers
On Oct. 28, 1980, Albert Greenwood Brown snatched Susan Jordan, 15, raped and strangled her to death with her own shoelace. Brown, who was on parole after raping a 14-year-old girl, then spent the night tormenting the dead girl's parents over the phone, telling them that they would never see their daughter again and where to find the girl's half-nude corpse and belongings. A jury sentenced him to death for that crime.
Last Wednesday, almost 30 years later, Brown was scheduled to be executed. Of course, it didn't happen. Various judges intervened, the state's meager supply of lethal-injection drugs was about to expire -- and so California's death penalty is on hold until 2011.
There hasn't been an execution in California since January 2006. In February of that year, federal Judge Jeremy Fogel essentially ordered a de facto moratorium on California's three-drug lethal-injection protocol because there was "undue risk" -- not that he knew if it had ever happened -- that a condemned murderer could "suffer excessive pain when he is executed."
In April 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that Kentucky's three-drug lethal-injection protocol is constitutional. Yet Fogel's injunction continued to prevent executions as California officials scrambled to reconfigure the lethal-injection protocol under a superior court judge's order.
No matter which course the state chooses, taxpayer-funded appellate attorneys have managed to block justice -- and on the taxpayer's dime.
Last month, Fogel issued a ruling to allow California's new lethal-injection protocol to proceed. Brown's attorneys argued that under the three-drug protocol, Brown might suffer pain after the initial injection of sodium pentothal. Ohio dealt with that argument by moving to a one-drug injection of that drug. Death penalty opponents complained that Ohio wanted to do drug testing on humans.
Likewise, Brown's attorneys protested that the new protocol was "untested." (Be it noted, there is only one way to test it.)
Fogel gave Brown the option of a single-drug option. His lawyers protested that Brown has given a too "short time frame" to decide. And they prevailed.
On Thursday, I talked to state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron George. His court also issued a ruling that stayed Brown's execution, this one on a narrow timing issue.
George told me, "I'd say, when the authorities end up procuring the second dose of lethal drug, I don't see why we shouldn't have executions resume."
Why is it, I asked, that Ohio has managed to execute 32 people since 1999, but California has only used capital punishment 13 times since 1977? (My answer would be: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.)
"We have a system that is dysfunctional," George answered. It was George who once famously said, "The leading cause of death on death row in California is old age."
Oddly, at Tuesday night's gubernatorial debate, neither Democrat Attorney General Jerry Brown nor Republican former eBay CEO Meg Whitman seemed particularly exercised about the delays.
Jerry Brown posited that the delays are "too lengthy." He then cited George's past calls to hire more personnel to handle the backlog, "because under the Constitution, these men who are condemned have a right to first-class representation." (Actually, George told me, "The operative word is effective representation, not first-class.")
Criminal Justice Legal Foundation legal director Kent Scheidegger blogged that Brown "seems to have swallowed the defense spin on the issue, hook, line, and sinker."
Whitman promised to be "a tough-on-crime governor." But she seemed most concerned about the money issues, when she said that if the state can't speed up the process, "we are going to be on the brink of building another death row facility."
This isn't an issue of prison construction costs. The anti-death penalty lobby is committed to burning through so much time and taxpayer money that voters cry uncle and give up on the death penalty because they're sick of bankrolling frivolous appeals that successfully thwart capital punishment even though the U.S. and California Supreme Courts have ruled it to be constitutional.
When they've won on the death penalty, they'll start trying to shave time from life-without-parole sentences, which they also consider to be inhumane -- on your dime as well.
The next governor needs to understand these forces and not give in to the siren song of inertia. But I don't think either Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman understands what is at stake.
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.
The editor of a Finnish weekly is alarmed by the Swedish left’s desire to censor the right-wing Sweden Democrats
‘The forces of darkness are holding Swedish democracy hostage.’
That was how the Swedish daily Expressen described the ascent of the right-wing, immigration-concerned Sweden Democrats party to parliament in the elections on 19 September. This ‘threat to democracy’ gained just short of six per cent of the vote across Sweden and 20 seats in the 349-seat parliament.
Amazingly enough, this was not the most dramatic example of hyperbole. Words like ‘racists’, ‘fascists’ and ‘loonies’ were freely bandied about in the Swedish press to describe the Sweden Democrats and their supporters.
The press had made its views clear well before the election took place. Practically every major newspaper in Sweden took the unprecedented step of refusing to take advertising from this party that allegedly threatens democracy.
The press thus decided to protect Swedish democracy by suppressing free speech. On cue, all parliamentary parties have stated that they will not cooperate with the Sweden Democrats.
While there is no question that a considerable portion of the people who support the Sweden Democrats party – which was founded in 1988 and which describes itself as a ‘nationalist movement’ – are xenophobic, and some are probably racist, the official views of the party are well within the range of normal democratic debate.
So the party states on its website that Swedish immigration policy should take its cue from Denmark and Finland. These two countries are unlikely examples of neo-fascist wannabes.
So why all the fuss? The social-democratic paper Västerbottens Folkblad encapsulated the real offence of the Sweden Democrats in a recent editorial, where it stated: ‘What on Earth do the people who voted for them want?’
Sweden has a long and proud history of political participation. More than 80 per cent of the electorate routinely votes in parliamentary elections. The notable exception to this has been the far right, which has been both demonised and marginalised in Swedish society.
Countless TV-news exposés have given the impression of vast neo-Nazi conspiracies intent on taking over the Scandinavian welfare state. That, at best, these far-right groups can organise a rally of 100 to 200 beer-drinking skinheads has never prevented journalists from painting them as an imminent threat to Swedish democracy.
Now that some of these yobs, who are a small minority in the Sweden Democrats party, have cleaned up their act, the same people who deplored their extra-parliamentary activities heap scorn on them for participating in the parliamentary process.
Never mind that their views are now exposed to public, critical debate, or that their party has publicly disassociated itself from racism. It is interesting to note that the same society that will bend over backwards to include extreme views on the other side of the cultural debate – namely militant imams – refuses to talk to the radicalised section of the indigenous population.
In an open democracy, the powers-that-be should welcome the chance to engage extremist views in open debate. Especially when those views do not breach Sweden’s strict hate speech laws. Yet it seems that the Swedish press would prefer that the grievances of the Sweden Democrats be met with batons instead of ballots.
The problem for Swedish democracy appears to be, not that some people are left in the margins, but that they have tried to be included.
A Look At The Technologies & Industries Senators Leahy & Hatch Would Have Banned In The Past
The more I look at the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act," (COICA) bill proposed by Senators Patrick Leahy and Orrin Hatch (and co-sponsored by Sens. Herb Kohl, Arlen Specter, Charles Schumer, Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Amy Klobuchar, Evan Bayh and George Voinovich) the worse it looks. The idea behind the bill is to give the Justice Department the ability to avoid due process in shutting down or blocking access to sites deemed "dedicated to infringing activities."
With such a broad definition of offerings dedicated to infringing activities, I thought it might be worth running through a list of technologies that and services that were all deemed "dedicated to infringing activities" in their early days, to give you a sense of what these Senators would have banned in the past with such a law:
* Hollywood itself: The history of Hollywood is that it was set up on the west coast in order to avoid Thomas Edison's attempt to control the movie making business with various patents. Hollywood was very much an entire industry dedicated to infringing activities in its early years.
* The recording industry: The origins of modern copyright law in the US came out of fears by musicians that the concept of any kind of automatic playing or "recorded" music would destroy the market for real live musicians. The fear of the player piano was a big, big issue in the early days, with sheet music producers claiming that piano rolls were infringing. So, the early parts of the recording industry were very much "dedicated to infringing activities."
* Radio: When radio first came about, it too was "dedicated to infringing activities." That's because it played music on the radio without paying.
* Cable TV: The very early days of cable TV involved the cable companies offering network television without paying for -- and, even worse, they were charging customers for access to others' content. The very core of the original cable TV system was "dedicated to infringing activities." Charlton Heston denounced cable as "depriving actors of compensation."
* Photocopying machines: When the Xerox machine came on the scene in the late 1950s, it freaked out the publishing industry who denounced it as being dedicated to infringing activities. Just as the 1909 Copyright Act was mainly a response to misguided fears of the player piano, some say the 1976 Copyright Act was in response to the Xerox machine. Some of the modern concepts around fair use came about due to lawsuits from publishers claiming that the photocopier was, in fact, dedicated to infringing activities.
* The VCR: By this point, you should know the famous Jack Valenti quote: "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." Yup. Dedicated to infringing activity.
* Cassette tapes: "Home taping is killing music." Need I say more?
* The MP3 player: Remember the RIAA's lawsuit against the Diamond Rio? They declared that such a device "stymies the market for . . . works and frustrates the development of legitimate digitally downloadable music." So, that iPod? Yes, it, too, was dedicated to infringing activity.
* The DVR: In 2001, a bunch of TV companies sued, claiming that the Replay TV DVR was an "unlawful scheme" that "attacks the fundamental economic underpinnings of free television and basic nonbroadcast services"
Notice a pattern yet? All sorts of new technologies tend to be berated and condemned as "dedicated to infringing activity," by legacy content industries when those new offerings first come along. It's only later on, when the industry learns to use those new tools of creating, recording, reproducing, performing, distributing, sharing and promoting that they realize those tools turned out to be quite useful in expanding, rather than shrinking, the industry.
Yet, here we are, with the list of Senators above, effectively looking to not allow that evolution to happen at all. They won't even give these new tools a fair trial (which, at the very least, was afforded to many of the tools in this list). Instead, they want to let the Justice Department (which, again, employs many former lawyers of the legacy industries) to simply put together a list of tools they believe infringe and to avoid due process in getting those tools effectively banned. The people making this list are not visionaries. They don't see how these tools can be quite useful to content creators. They're anti-visionaries. They only see how the new tools change the rules for the legacy industry. Do we really want anti-visionaries outlawing the next movie industry? Or the next VCR? Or the next iPod?
At last! An end to Britain's "elf 'n' safety" madness as meddling officials face fines if they ban events
Meddling officials who attempt to ban events or activities on the grounds that they breach red tape will themselves be threatened with huge fines under Government plans.
And emergency workers, teachers and office workers are to be freed from the compensation culture where someone must be held to account for everyday mishaps and accidents.
Margaret Thatcher’s former trade secretary Lord Young, who has drawn up a string of proposals accepted by David Cameron, says a decade of Labour laws and regulations will now be torn up.
The assault on the excesses of the health and safety culture will form a key part of the Tory Party conference which begins tomorrow in Birmingham, and is seen as a potential vote winner.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Lord Young unveiled plans which include:
* Local authorities who wrongly try to block events on health and safety grounds will be forced to pay large-scale compensation;
* No-win, no-fee advertising encouraging personal injury claims will face a major crackdown;
* Red tape that means many children never go on school outings is to be scrapped
* People performing first aid or Good Samaritan acts are to be exempted from being sued.
Lord Young, 78, said ‘petty tyrants’ had been allowed to flourish under Labour.
He said he had uncovered extraordinary examples, including a restaurant that would not give out toothpicks for fear of injury, a headteacher who told pupils not to walk under a conker tree without helmets and a council that banned a pancake race because it was raining.
‘It makes you wonder what sort of world we have come to,’ Lord Young said. ‘It has gone to such extremes. What I have seen everywhere is a complete lack of common sense. People have been living in an alternative universe.’
Lord Young said he was particularly concerned about council officials who often claimed powers to stop village fetes, sporting events or other events when they have none. In one example, organisers of the annual Whitsun cheese-rolling down a steep hill in the Cotswolds cancelled it this year after pressure from police and local authorities.
In future those affected by wrong decisions may go to the local government ombudsman who will be able to insist that a council pays compensation.
Asked how much local authorities would be forced to pay, Lord Young said: ‘Whatever the loss is. I want officials to think twice and make sure they have the authority. ‘This sort of nonsense has come from the last government trying to create a nanny state and trying to keep everybody in cotton wool.
‘Frankly if I want to do something stupid and break my leg or neck, that’s up to me. I don’t need a council to tell me not to be an idiot. I can be an idiot all by myself.’
He said the Government, which has approved his report, due to be published later this month, would also implement a crackdown on ‘ambulance-chasing’ personal injury firms. There will be restrictions on the way they advertise their services and a limit to speculative law suits.
‘The last government allowed no-win, no-fee advertising and we have seen an enormous rush of it, on afternoon TV particularly,’ Lord Young said. ‘A lot of them aren’t lawyers - they’re claims management companies. ‘People are being paid for making a claim. Legal expenses are now two or three times the claim. The biggest cost to the health service is legal fees. That’s going to stop.’
Schools are to be freed from burdensome regulations. Lord Young said: ‘Schools are not allowing pupils to go on days out because they are scared they will be liable if an accident happens. ‘That’s nonsense, and that’s not going to continue, unless a teacher is really negligent. In the ordinary course of events, accidents happen.’
The Health and Safety Executive enforces 202 primary regulations, a third of which were passed since Labour came to power in 1997.
Lord Young, who has an office in Downing Street, revealed that the Prime Minister has asked him to stay on to advise on turning public services into locally-owned co-operatives. Baroness Thatcher once said of him: ‘Other people brought me problems. He brought me solutions.’
Australia: The right to freedom of speech is being threatened in the courtroom
Andrew Bolt is getting sued. Don't applaud yet. There's been a lot of outrage about the federal government's proposed internet filter. But lawsuits like the one now faced by the prominent conservative Herald Sun columnist are as much a restriction on freedom of speech as anything Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has come up with.
Nine people are suing Bolt for an article that claimed their Aboriginal self-identification was "fashionable". He had said they all had part-European, part-indigenous heritage (and fair skin) with an opportunity to describe themselves as a range of nationalities. But, he wrote, they chose to describe themselves as Aboriginal. Doing so gave them "political and career clout".
At worst, Bolt is deliberately and provocatively disrespectful.
But as their lawyer has pointed out, there are two tests of whether someone is Aboriginal. The first is an objective genealogical test: a fairly clear cut question of whether they have Aboriginal ancestors. The second is subjective: whether a person chooses to self-identify as indigenous, and whether they are "communally" regarded as such.
Bolt's columns criticised political appointments and government awards that pivot on an individual's Aboriginality. They're absolutely within their rights to apply for those grants, prizes and positions. But like it or not, by sponsoring things like indigenous-specific art and literary awards, the government makes what constitutes Aboriginality a political question.
And it's a question academics have been trying to unpack for decades. Universities teach courses in the "concept of Aboriginality". Surveying the literature in 2002, the Parliamentary Library could only conclude "an individual's ethnic identity is always to some degree fluid, multiple, differing in degrees, and constructed".
Of course, Bolt tackles the issue with trademark belligerence. The merits of his argument will now be tested in court. But put aside the conservative commentator. This isn't about the collected works and opinions of Andrew Bolt. And put aside the complexities of racial identity, Aboriginality and reconciliation.
This case is troubling because of what it says about our right to freedom of speech. If successful - or just really expensive to defend - this lawsuit could have a stifling effect on political debate.
The 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that only by airing contested views publicly and freely could the truth be known. Societies need free speech if only to test and challenge controversial opinions.
And we're not going to have those necessary debates while legal action stifles one side. No matter how wrong or misguided that side may be.
Silencing Bolt doesn't just silence him. It potentially silences the speech of others who might be afraid of being similarly dragged through the legal system.
After all, Bolt and his employer can afford to defend themselves. No doubt they have lawyers on call. Newspapers know their way around court.
By contrast, bloggers, amateur journalists, Twitterers and Facebookers commenting on sensitive political issues - for whatever reason, with whatever motives - are much more exposed to punitive legal action than newspaper columnists are.
Should only the rich be able to have controversial views? If anything is going to suffocate the blossoming citizen media, it will be lawyers.
Bolt is being challenged under the federal government's Racial Discrimination Act. But that's hardly the only law on the books that has a damaging impact on free speech. Our politicians have a long and shameful history of using Australia's defamation laws to sue their critics - threatening someone with a defamation suit is a public relations tactic.
In Victoria, our Racial and Religious Tolerance Act, introduced in 2001, has been co-opted as a stick for religious groups to hit each other.
First, the Islamic Council of Victoria took the fundamentalist Christian Catch the Fire Ministries to court. Then a Wiccan prison inmate took the Salvation Army to court. Then the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council threatened to take the Islamic Information and Services Network of Australasia to court. That's a shabby record for a law supposed to promote tolerance, not division.
Suppressing offensive views can be counterproductive. The churches and mosques targeted by the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act were able to say their beliefs were being persecuted - attracting more followers. The victimised dissident is a hero, not a villain.
To his credit, Bolt is a prominent critic of Victoria's vilification laws. Last year, the Human Rights Consultation Committee faced the task of recommending what should appear in an Australian bill of rights. It struggled to balance our right to free speech with a new "right" demanded by some - the right to not be offended by the speech of others.
But there are an infinite number of ways people could be offended. How could we possibly prevent all outrage? You can have the right to free speech, or you can have the right to be protected by the government from the offensive speech of others. You can't have both.
There are other ways to respond to distasteful views. Refuse to buy the Herald Sun. Tell your friends to do the same. Condemn it in other opinion columns. The solution to bad speech is more speech. If something is offensive, it deserves to be condemned, loudly and often.
This week saw the first Aboriginal member of the federal House of Representatives sit in Parliament. Ken Wyatt is a Liberal. He promised to advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Parliament. His mother was [allegedly] one of the stolen generations. In his maiden speech, Wyatt thanked Kevin Rudd for the 2008 apology.
That's a genuine step towards reconciliation. Wielding the legal system as a weapon to try to silence critics isn't - no matter how offensive they might be.
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.
When Ed Miliband stood before his party faithful last week as their new leader, grinning nervously in the glare of the spotlight, did his mind flicker back to the men who preceded him?
From its very first leader, Keir Hardie, who started work at the age of just ten in the coalmines of Lanarkshire, to the perma-tanned, globe-trotting, book-flogging Tony Blair, it is safe to say that the self-described people’s party has travelled an awfully long way.
Yet listening to Mr Miliband joking awkwardly about boyhood battles with his defeated brother David, it was hard not to wonder what on earth Labour’s most famous names would have made of the state of their party.
What would self-made men such as Ernest Bevin and Jim Callaghan, who hauled themselves up by their bootstraps from poverty, think of a leadership election that asked members to choose between two privileged, Oxford-educated brothers from North London?
What would war heroes such as Major Clement Attlee and Major Denis Healey make of an election in which neither of the leading candidates had ever held a job outside the political arena?
And what, they might well ask, does it say about the sad state of British politics that our three major parties are led by smooth fortysomethings who might have been cast from exactly the same mould?
Look again at the scenes of delight and despair at last week’s Labour conference, and you see not just an astonishingly incestuous story of fraternal rivalry, but a damning indictment of the collapse of opportunity in modern Britain — and a depressing reminder of the extent to which we are now governed by a tiny, closed and thoroughly narcissistic political class.
And the one characteristic they all share is an overwhelming sense of entitlement that — despite having no knowledge of the real world — they believe gives them a preordained right to rule over us.
But as genuine mobility slips further from reach, there has rarely been a greater gulf between rulers and ruled. Perhaps not since the Victorian era has the distance between the voter and the politician seemed such a chasm.
After all, Ed Miliband makes a very unconvincing spokesman for the ordinary men and women who Labour claims to defend. How many ordinary Labour voters grew up listening to discussions of socialist theory in their Primrose Hill drawing room? How many teenagers today are invited to review films on LBC radio, or work as interns for leading politicians, as ‘Red Ed’ did for Tony Benn?
Depressingly, however, Labour’s new leader is entirely typical of the slick, privileged and strikingly youthful men and women who now dominate our public life.
And for all Mr Miliband’s tiresome emphasis on his youth, British politics could surely do with a few more grey hairs and balding pates. David Cameron and Nick Clegg are both 43, while Ed Miliband is only 40. That makes him less than half the age of the great Liberal statesman William Gladstone, who was 82 when he led his last reforming government in 1892.
Unfashionable as it may be, there is surely much to be said for the wisdom of years. Winston Churchill, after all, was almost 66 when he answered his country’s call in 1940. He had been in Parliament for 40 years, and first entered the Cabinet in 1908 — yet it was precisely because he was so experienced, so seasoned, so battle-hardened, that he was the ideal man to lead our nation through its darkest and finest hours. By contrast, today’s politicians might as well have come straight from nursery school.
Indeed, so smooth and effortless has Mr Miliband’s rise been that when he talked last week about the rise of his ‘new generation’, he seemed to have no inkling of the value of hard-fought experience.For him, the new generation means people like his brother David, who enjoyed the same favoured education — Haverstock School in North London, a politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) degree at Oxford and a spell at a top American university.
Or people like Ed Balls — son of a professor, privately educated at Nottingham High School, PPE at Oxford and a spell at Harvard. Indeed, the closer you look, the harder it becomes to tell the members of our political class apart. Mr Balls’ wife Yvette Cooper read PPE at Oxford, too, before making the obligatory trip to Harvard.
And despite all her talk of equality, Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman is hardly a great advert for social mobility: she went to St Paul’s Girls, the expensive sister school to George Osborne’s alma mater. Amazingly, perhaps, Mr Osborne himself did not read PPE at Oxford; he read history instead. But David Cameron read PPE, although the Prime Minister will surely be too much of a gentleman to mention that while Ed Miliband only got a 2:1, he got a First.
And though Nick Clegg, perhaps showing a flash of Lib Dem eccentricity, read anthropology, not politics or history, his background is so strikingly similar it is no wonder that he and Mr Cameron get along so well. The son of a banker, he went to private school and Cambridge, spent his holidays as a skiing instructor and then, naturally, went off to America to study at the University of Minnesota and work as an intern at a Left-wing magazine.
There is nothing wrong with a private education, an Oxbridge training or a privileged background. Sadly, though, the fact is that at a time when social mobility has stalled, with bright, hard-working children from poor backgrounds struggling to make their way up the ladder, Britain is governed by a tiny political class with almost identical backgrounds, life stories and values.
There are, of course, notable exceptions. For my money, the man Labour should have chosen as their next leader was Alan Johnson, an orphan brought up in a council flat by his sister, who passed his 11-plus, went to grammar school and worked as a shelf-stacker before becoming a postman.
No doubt the former Home Secretary has his weaknesses. But at least people would have believed him when he claimed to understand the plight of ordinary families, and at least he could be said to embody the values of thrift, decency and hard work.
The fact is that at a time when social mobility has stalled, with bright, hard-working children from poor backgrounds struggling to make their way up the ladder, Britain is governed by a tiny political class with almost identical backgrounds, life stories and values
An exception: Brought up on a council estate by a single mother, educated at a local grammar school, Mr Davis became an insurance clerk, joined the Territorial Army to pay for re-taking his exams and ended up working for Tate & Lyle for 17 years. There could hardly be a better example of that dying breed, the working-class Tory MP, or a more compelling story of aspiration, ambition and social mobility — in which, you suspect, his grammar school education played a central part.
There have, of course, always been hacks and apparatchiks. Remembered today as a Tory grandee who served as Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Deputy PM, Rab Butler was only 26 when he entered Parliament in 1929, and like so many of his modern-day successors, he never held a proper job outside politics in his life. Significantly, he was denied the leader’s mantle that he felt was his by right.
But 50 or 60 years ago, the stories of Alan Johnson and David Davis would have seemed rather less exceptional than they do today.
Four out of ten Labour MPs came from manual working-class families: Attlee’s deputy PM Herbert Morrison was the son of a Lambeth police constable, while Labour’s deputy leader in the late 1950s, Jim Griffiths, was one of ten children born to a Welsh blacksmith, left school at 13 and took night classes while working as a miner.
And even the Old Etonian Harold Macmillan’s front bench boasted the talents of Reginald Bevins, a former Royal Artillery gunner who was one of five children born into a working-class Liverpool family.
Indeed, the ultimate indictment of today’s political system is that instead of becoming more open, it actually seems to be going backwards, becoming ever more narrow, privileged and exclusive.
Today’s House of Commons is stuffed full of Rab Butlers, thanks largely to the efforts of the party machines to secure safe seats for privileged youths such as the Tory millionaire Zac Goldsmith in Richmond and Labour’s Tristram Hunt, the Left-wing historian, in Stoke. And, sadly, the Alan Johnsons and David Davises are becoming all too rare.
Wasn’t it ever thus? In a word: no. Turn the clock back 60 years, and the political class looked very different. At the head of the Labour Party in 1950 was the modest, unassuming Clement Attlee, who had enjoyed a privileged background and a Haileybury education, but learned the harsh realities of life while working with deprived children in the East End of London.
Like many politicians of his day, Attlee knew the rigours of war at first hand, serving with the South Lancashire Regiment in Gallipoli. Later he fought in Iraq, where he was badly wounded by shrapnel, and ended up in the trenches on the Western Front.
Attlee’s great collaborator Ernest Bevin had a very different life story. Born to a poor family in rural Somerset, he never knew his father, left school at just 11 and had to read the daily paper to his illiterate relatives. And to people who met him as a young man, the idea that this West Country labourer would one day become Foreign Secretary would have seemed laughable.
Yet this was the man who not only reorganised British industry to win World War II, but helped to establish Nato and the United Nations, built the post-war Western alliance against Soviet Communism and pushed for Britain to develop its own nuclear deterrent.
As his friend, opponent and wartime colleague Winston Churchill admiringly put it, Bevin’s ‘manliness, his common sense, his rough simplicity, sturdiness and kind heart, easy geniality and generosity’ were the envy of the Commons. Bevin had learned the value of hard work and sacrifice: when he invoked the British people, he knew what he was talking about.
What Bevin would make of his latter-day successors can only be imagined. Perhaps one day somebody, too, will wax lyrical about Ed Miliband’s manliness, sturdiness and common sense. But I would not stake my house on it.
The crucial point, though, is that Bevin was not alone in bringing a wide experience of life to the political arena. When he looked around the House of Commons in the 1940s and 1950s, he saw young men like Denis Healey who had orchestrated the Allied landings at Anzio, or Ted Heath who had commanded an artillery battery in Northern France.
Both Healey and Heath were from modest backgrounds; both had worked their way up by their own efforts; both, crucially, had benefited from a grammar school education. And within a few years they would be joined by another ambitious young politician who was to leave an even greater mark on our national story.
Margaret Thatcher’s background could hardly have been more different from the gilded intellectual cage inhabited by the Miliband brothers. The daughter of a Methodist grocer in Grantham, Lincolnshire, she won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls, a local grammar school, where she first established a reputation for ferocious hard work.
Shamefully, critics often held her background against her: in the 1980s, the philosopher Mary Warnock mocked Mrs Thatcher’s accent, clothes and hair as ‘not exactly vulgar, just low’.
The tragedy is that at a time when ordinary families are feeling the pinch, and when the headlines are full of austerity, pain and sacrifice, our political class has never been more out of touch
But unlike the boarding school-educated Baroness Warnock, Mrs Thatcher had worked for everything she achieved. It was sheer brains and effort, not family connections, that drove her from Grantham to Downing Street.
And her belief in the virtues of hard work, inspired by her simple Methodist faith and grammar school education, lay at the heart of her political outlook. Her one aim, she said, was to ‘change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society, from a give-it-to-me to a do-it-yourself nation’.
Margaret Thatcher, the champion of free markets, and Ernest Bevin, the soul of old-fashioned Labour, might make odd ideological bedfellows. But what they had in common was precisely what is missing from so many of today’s political class — a set of basic values, a love of effort and hard work, and a rounded awareness of life and its perils, inspired by their background, education and experience.
Unlike today’s political leaders, they knew what life was like for millions of ordinary people for whom the gilded splendour of the Palace of Westminster seemed as distant as the craters of the moon.
Like their colleagues Aneurin Bevan, a former Welsh coal miner, or Willie Whitelaw, a tank commander in Normandy, they had learned the lessons of life from bitter experience, not in the seminar rooms of Harvard.
‘I get it,’ Mr Miliband said over and over again last week, just as his spin doctors had instructed him. But you wonder whether, given his cloistered background, his lack of experience and his narrow horizons, he can ever really understand the hopes and fears of millions of people in Warrington, Welshpool and Wolverhampton, people who never had his good fortune or family connections.
The Labour Party may call itself the people’s party. But as the political class celebrate their victory, and the hard realities of life slip ever further from view, you wonder whether its nickname has ever seemed less appropriate.
'Christian' Easter eggs snubbed by stores claims Church Of England
Supermarkets are reluctant to stock specially branded Easter eggs which mention Jesus on the packaging, the Church of England said yesterday. The chocolate eggs are being produced by the Church next Easter after it found that none of the 80million on sale this year had a religious theme.
The packaging around the £3.99 Real Easter Egg carries a panel explaining how Christians believe that Christ was crucified on Good Friday and rose again on Easter Sunday. ‘Many believe that chocolate eggs represent the boulder that sealed his tomb,’ the box tells buyers.
And, amid the more typical art work showing butterflies, bunnies and chickens, the packaging depicts a green hill with three crosses on it.
But in its negotiations with stockists, the Church has found that some large chains are resistant to stocking such overtly religious products for children. A CofE spokesman said: ‘Despite the obvious demand, not all UK supermarkets are planning to stock the egg next year.’
The criticism comes in the wake of the Pope’s state visit to Britain last month in which he attacked ‘aggressive secularism’ and set out his dismay at attempts to stifle the celebration of Christian festivals such as Christmas and Easter ‘in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none’.
Last night, two of the supermarket chains that have not yet made a decision said they were not opposed in principle. A Waitrose spokesman said: ‘We have asked the supplier for more information on this new product but in principle it is something that we would be really interested in.’ At the Co-op, a spokesman said: ‘No decision about stocking the egg has been made as we have not yet finalised our plans for our Easter range.’
The CofE spokesman said: ‘There are over 80million chocolate Easter eggs sold each year in the UK and, incredibly, not one mentions the Christian understanding of Easter on the box.’
The Church of England believes demand for religious Easter eggs will come from: seven million people who are at least occasional churchgoers; seven million who support the Fairtrade organisation which is supplying the chocolate for its egg; and from 8,000 church schools, which will encourage pupils to buy them.
The eggs, produced by a spin-off company from the CofE’s Manchester diocese, will benefit two charities: Traidcraft Exchange, which helps Third World farmers; and Baby Lifeline, which supplies hospitals with equipment and gives training to medical staff.
It was not so very long ago that many archaeologists regarded the Ancestral Puebloan people–or the Anasazi, as researchers once called them–as a rather peaceful, mystical group of astronomers, artists, priests and farmers. They based this idea largely on their observations of modern Puebloan peoples: the Hopi, the Zuni and others who lived in traditional pueblos, such as Taos, and who often lived quiet lives of ritual and spirituality.
But in the early 90s, some Southwestern archaeologists began questioning this received wisdom. David Wilcox, an archaeologist at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, hypothesized that the rulers of Chaco Canyon, a massive Ancestral Puebloan site, commanded a small army and demanded tribute from their southern neighbors, slaughtering any who didn’t comply. As evidence, Wilcox pointed to charnel pits excavated in dozens of Ancestral Puebloan sites dating to the late 10th and early 11th century C.E.: these pits looked like mass graves from a war zone.
At first most Southwestern archaeologists just shook their head and smiled at Wilcox’s ideas. But evidence of very nasty times in the ancient Southwest began to accumulate. Physical anthropologist Christy Turner, now a professor emeritus at Arizona State University, and others detected traces of extreme violence and cannibalism on human bones unearthed at 40 different Ancestral Puebloan sites. Such acts of cannibalism, Wilcox suggested, were political messages, deliberate desecration of the dead as a warning to others.
This month, researchers added yet more dark shading to the picture in a paper published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. At a site known as Sacred Ridge in Colorado, Jason Chuipka, an archaeologist at Woods Canyon Archaeological Consultants, and his colleagues unearthed 14,882 human skeletal fragments–the remains of deliberately mutilated Ancestral Puebloan inhabitants–as well as two-headed axes smeared with human blood residues. The dead dated to the late 8th or early 9th century, a time when the first Ancestral Puebloan villages were forming.
To Chuipka and his co-author James Potter, an archaeologist at SWCA Environmental Consultants in Broomfield, Colorado, the evidence suggested that the inhabitants of Sacred Ridge–men, women and children–were singled out for a particularly terrible form of violence: ethnic conflict.
So what to make of all this? Why such a radical shift in our vision of the Ancestral Puebloan people? When I began thinking about this, I came up with two things. First of all, physical anthropologists today know much more about the osteological indicators of warfare and cannibalism than they did thirty years ago. So they have a much clearer idea of what to look for.
But the second thing goes to the very heart of archaeology itself. Journalists and other members of the public ask archaeologists all the time to explain what various artifacts and data mean. We don’t really want to hear about 14,882 bone fragments. What we want to know is what happened to all those bodies and all those people. And our insatiable curiosity constantly forces archaeologists to interpret their findings, to make a story of them.
So archaeologists do what anybody else would do–they look for analogies in modern life. In the early 1970s, for example, when the Vietnam War raged, many researchers hypothesized that the collapse of the Classic Maya civilization was due to extreme warfare. In the 1980s and 1990s, they pointed to environmental causes, such as soil erosion. And today, many researchers ascribe the collapse to climate change, specifically a series of devastating droughts.
Probably all these factors played a part in the fall of the classic Maya civilization. But I find it interesting to think about the ways in which contemporary history contributes to prevailing archaeological hypotheses and interpretations. I personally think it’s very possible that some Ancestral Puebloan people were victims of ethnic cleansing. But would the archaeological community have taken this idea so seriously, had it not been for the intense media coverage of ethnic conflicts and cleansing in places like Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan in recent years?
Conservatives need to insist that endangered children be protected
Because the Left won't do it -- says Jeremy Sammut, a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies (Australia)
THE state has a responsibility to protect children from inadequate parents.
For people on the Right, child protection can be a difficult issue. Those who identify with liberal traditions place a premium on limited state intrusion into the lives of individuals. However, child protection reform that upholds the independent rights of children needs to be on their policy agenda.
The clientele of child protection services consists predominantly of members of the underclass, that proportion of Australians who are long-term welfare dependent and have a range of welfare-dependence exacerbated behavioural issues, such as domestic violence and substance abuse.
The complex problems these families experience include the inability to rear children adequately.
In too many child welfare cases the presumed right of dysfunctional parents to retain custody of children is elevated above the best interests of children.
While encouraging parents to change their behaviour and meet children's needs has always been a part of modern child protection, the pendulum has swung too far towards trying to fix broken families and giving parents almost limitless opportunities to change.
A culture of non-intervention in family situations has developed in the state bureaucracies in charge of child protection services.
The statutory investigation of child welfare reports by caseworkers trained to assess whether a child is in need of court-approved removal from the family home has been marginalised in favour of providing support services (drug counselling, parenting programs, home visits) to families.
Instead of focusing on traditional child protection work, social services departments provide parent-centred rather than child-centred services to allow biological parents to retain custody of children, even where children are identified as being in danger of harm.
Child protection failures create the next generation of dysfunctional parents. The paradox, and the dilemma for those on the Right, is that greater intervention is needed in the lives of dependent members of the community to break the intergenerational cycle of neglect and abuse and save future generations.
The broader cultural issue is whether the Right has the will to defend core community standards or whether the questionable perspectives of the Left will continue to dictate social values in child protection.
When the welfare of children is at stake, it is not too harsh to hold parents accountable for bad behaviour in circumstances that contravene John Stuart Mill's principle that liberty should be interfered with only to "prevent harm to others". Mill was one of the 19th-century progenitors of the progressive idea that a child had the right to enjoy their full liberties and opportunities as a future citizen. In On Liberty, he argued that parents who failed to fulfil their "sacred duties" towards their children were guilty of "a moral crime both against the unfortunate offspring and against society . . . if the parent does not fulfil this obligation, the state ought to see it fulfilled".
However, the moral and social judgments that child protection depends on are beyond the comprehension of those who subscribe to leftist cultural politics.
In an article published in June last year in the Australian Journal of Politics and History, Kate Murphy, Marian Quartly and Denise Cuthbert accused those who frowned on drug-addled parenting of supporting the "conservative family policy of the Howard era".
This would be bad enough if it only reflected the dated ideology pervading the social services sector, which is that removing children punishes poor parents who are victims of structural socioeconomic injustice.
The authors' views also reflect postmodern values that cast child protection as a moral panic deployed to authorise the social surveillance and cultural oppression of the powerless and excluded.
The notion given credence by Murphy, Quartly and Cuthbert is that child welfare laws hold parents to socially constructed behavioural standards to buttress the hegemony of traditional bourgeois family values. Treating parental intravenous drug use in a relativist manner - as if drug-addled parenting is a legitimate lifestyle choice - is wrong and dangerous because it denies the reality of child abuse and neglect.
The idea that welfare-dependent heroin addicts have a right to keep their children reveals moral and ideological confusion. Those on the Right need not hesitate out of misplaced doctrinal concerns to make such judgments about the rights of parents as against the rights of children.
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.
Anti-Islamist Dutch Politician, Facing Trial for ‘Inciting Hatred,’ Secures His Party’s Role in New Government
Days before anti-Islamist Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ trial for “inciting hatred and discrimination” begins, his political party has reached an agreement with two others on forming the country’s next government.
Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) reportedly will not hold any cabinet posts, but it will lend support in parliament to a minority coalition government headed by the center-right Liberal Party (VVD), whose leader Mark Rutte is set to become prime minister.
“Who would have thought, a couple of years ago, that the Freedom Party would have a huge amount of influence in government?” Wilders said on Tuesday evening.
The relatively rapid rise of the PVV is seen as a reflection of hardening sentiment in the Netherlands against radical Islam, triggered in part by the 2004 murder by a Muslim extremist of controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had focused his criticism on Islam.
About six percent of the Netherlands’ population – one million out of a total of 16 million – is Muslim, mostly of Turkish and Moroccan origin.
Six years ago Wilders, then a VVD lawmaker, split from the party because he opposed its support for Turkey joining the European Union. A one-man campaign grew into the new Freedom Party which in 2006 elections stunned political observers by winning nine seats in the 150-seat Tweede Kamer legislature.
That achievement was replicated in June, when Wilders’ party jumped to 24 seats, making it the third-largest in the Tweede Kamer.
As the election left neither the front-runner VVD nor the second-placed center-left Labor Party with enough support to govern alone, lengthy coalition negotiations followed.
Some 110 days later they delivered an agreement late Tuesday involving VVD, PVV and the Christian Democrats (CDA), the center-right party which led the outgoing governing coalition but saw its parliamentary representation halved in June, dropping from first to fourth place.
On Monday, Wilders goes on trial in the Amsterdam District Court for allegedly “inciting hatred and discrimination,” charges arising his from statements and activism against radical Islam.
In 2008 he drew protests from Muslims around the world after producing a short documentary film that interspersed passages from the Quran with footage of terror attacks and clips of Muslim clerics endorsing violence.
He had already provoked controversy a year earlier by calling for the Quran to be outlawed in the Netherlands, on the grounds that verses instruct Muslims “to oppress, persecute or kill Christians, Jews, dissidents and non-believers, to beat and rape women and to establish an Islamic state by force.”
An appeal court ruled last year that Wilders’ statements constituted “hate speech” and instructed prosecutors to indict him.
The prospect of a trial has evidently not dampened his fervor. Wilders delivered a rousing speech at a Sept. 11 rally in New York opposing the “Ground Zero mosque,” and told the Associated Press over the summer he has plans to launch an international “freedom alliance,” beginning in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany and France.
THE Netherlands will ban the burqa, anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders has said following the announcement of a pact to form a minority coalition government backed by his party. "There will also be a burqa ban," Mr Wilders told journalists in The Hague, announcing measures agreed on by three parties negotiating to form a new government.
The measures, which seek to cut government spending by 18 billion euros ($25 billion) by 2015, should also halve the number of immigrants who enter the Netherlands, the politician said.
"A new wind will blow in the Netherlands," Wilders said, standing alongside presumed prime minister-in-waiting Mark Rutte, who leads the pro-business VVD party, and Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) leader Maxime Verhagen - the two parties set to be in government.
Mr Wilders' PVV will remain outside but will provide the minority cabinet with the majority it needs to pass decisions through parliament in return for a voice in policy formation.
Negotiations have been ongoing since June 9 elections to reach a balance between Mr Wilders' socialist policies and strict budget cuts promised by the VVD, which narrowly won the poll with 31 out of 150 parliamentary seats.
In return for supporting austerity measures Mr Wilders, who campaigns for a ban on Muslim immigration, wants to stop the building of new mosques and tax Muslim head scarves, was to get a say in immigration and other policies.
CDA party members, deeply divided over cooperation with Mr Wilders, have yet to approve the new accord which will be debated at a congress on Saturday.
The plan, titled "Freedom and responsibility" proposes cutting the Netherlands' contribution to the European Union by one billion euros, shaving a further billion euros off development cooperation and 1.2 billion euros off health care costs, reducing the number of MPs from 150 to 100 and the number of senators from 75 to 50.
The longest chapter of the accord, seven pages of the 46-page document, is devoted to "immigration". "Important reforms will be carried out in the Netherlands," Mr Rutte said in presenting the pact. "We want to give the country back to the working Dutch citizen."
Ms Verhagen described the deal as a "very good governing agreement. I am convinced that it is an agreement that every Christian Democrat will be able to identify with."
British supermarket bosses order boy aged TWO to take down hood 'for security reasons'
The Brits just love exercising bureaucratic power to annoy, hamper or hurt others
The parents of a two-year-old boy have accused their local Co-op store of a 'total lack of common sense and flexibility' after being asked by a member of staff to take their son's anorak hood down inside the shop. Corey Read's family were faced with the bizarre security demand - said to be a policy for all Co-op customers - when they visited the store in Norwich.
The boy's grandfather Alan Barker, 41, said today: 'I'm so angry at the Co-op's attitude, especially as the weather is getting worse and Corey has to stay warm to avoid getting ear infections.'
His mother Stacie Read, 23, explained they had gone to the Co-op along with her five-month-old baby son Finley Read, husband Shane Read, 22, and uncle Chris Read, 21.
Mrs Read, who lives nearby said: 'We'd just gone into the shop to get a few things for our Sunday roast. 'Corey had been complaining of earache, so he had the hood of his coat up. 'We were just near the door when the manager said, 'Do you mind pulling his hood down? 'He told us, 'It's just that eight-year-olds will moan that he's allowed his hood up but they are not.' 'It was especially cold that day and the doors are always open in the shop.'
She added: 'I didn't want Corey getting cold as he is prone to ear infections.
'We went into Tesco next door straight afterwards and the security guard there didn't say a thing about Corey's hood.' It is understood that because the incident happened on a Sunday the store's regular manager was not on duty.
Hoods, hats and other types of headgear are banned by many shops due to fears over crime and anti-social behaviour as it makes it harder to identify offenders using CCTV cameras.
Mrs Read said her husband Shane, a factory worker, was furious but she urged him not to become involved in a row over the issue. Later that day Corey's grandfather, Mr Barker, phoned the store to complain and spoke to the duty manager.
Mr Barker, of Bowthorpe, Norwich, said: 'He told me, We have to do this'. 'He said, We have 90-year-olds who come in and we have to tell them the same thing. 'This is a bad area and we have a lot of stealing.
'Corey is quite a skinny little chap and feels the cold,' Mr Barker said. 'He's just two years old and he's hardly going to rob the store.' He added: 'We go in all the local shops and that's the first time that something like this has ever happened to us.'
The company has now launched an urgent investigation into the incident. Miriam Harrup, spokeswoman for East of England Co-op, said today: 'We are investigating what happened.' She went on to explain that the company had a general policy of asking customers to remove helmets and hoods for security reasons but that a common-sense approach was usually taken.
In a recent conversation with a vendor, who I had not spoken to at any point in my attenuated life, my first name was employed. I realized at that moment that I now live in egalitarian fantasy land where familiarity is expected. I recoiled; afterall, this was a raid on my privacy. But it was more than that; in a strange way this was the latest manifestation of civility’s demise.
There have been several recent examples that confirm this opinion.
As a resident of the Financial Community in Manhattan I remember the 9/11 amputation of the World Financial Center as a scar in my memory bank. Those who lost their lives on the fateful day a decade ago made the former World Trade Center site hallowed ground. As a consequence, I have been outspoken about the plan to build a mosque in the shadow of this location, a decision I regard as a stain on the memory of those killed by radical Muslim conspirators.
Whether my position is correct or not however is besides the point. I have been smeared by Mayor Bloomberg as a bigot and compared to nineteenth century Know Nothings and lynch mobs from the Jim Crow era. This is a calumny. Moreover, it is a breakdown of civility. If the mayor is entitled to First Amendment rights, why should they be denied to me?
It is instructive that in this era disagreements lead to insults. Debate and discussion have been relegated to anachronistic concerns. And a mayor who should know better can not contain his ideological fervor and disregard for the opinion of others.
Similarly, several recent books contend that manners harbor tacit power relationships. Courtesy, argue these authors, undermines equality. What these authors really mean is that challenging manners is an appropriate expression of the lowest common denominator. A refusal to cover your mouth when coughing in a crowded subway train is a provocation, a sign that one doesn’t care whether he infects you with his germs. Yet what was once assumed, now must be explained.
For most of my adult life hats were passé, a sartorial expression of an earlier generation. But recently hats appear to be back in fashion. However, in the past, a gentleman took off his hat in-doors. He might even doff his hat in a crowded elevator. Now hats are an adornment, never taken off in or out of doors. Baseball caps are worn as rally caps – upside down, backwards or on the side. Rather than worn rakishly, the hat is worn clownishly. Some might call this inventive; I call it absurd.
Even more absurd is reality TV with programs like “Jersey Shore” where moral filters are voided. The expectation is that the principals will say whatever is on their minds, mostly sex, body piercing, drinking and getting high. This is not only TV for the mindless, it is TV for the morally vacuous.
Then there is language contamination. So many people I meet think that it is appropriate to use the “f – bomb” as an adjectival expression for any deeply felt emotion. Sometimes I think that without that word, expression wouldn’t be possible. In part, this is the egalitarian spirit gone wild. It can also be explained by an impoverishment of language skill. But mostly, I believe, it is a habit, a reflex that suggests civil discourse is unnecessary. This is not solely the province of sailors any longer. Middle class housewives, high school students, salesmen all partake. The “f” contagion is ubiquitous.
Then there is my pet peeve: drivers who insist on being in the left lane even though they will not accelerate beyond 30 miles per hour in 55 mph speed zones. These hogs of the road do not acknowledge passing rules, nor does traffic congestion bother them. They are oblivious to the rules of the road and, most importantly, do not care about others on the highway.
These illustrations are merely a few of the ways civility is in dissuetude. Clearly societies do not rise and fall on the basis of civility. But life is simply more pleasant when conversation is civil and people are courteous to one another. If this seems exaggerated or that I’m off track, ask a subway rider how he feels about the breakdown in civility. I hope he doesn’t drop the f-bomb in response.
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.
Sarah Palin is undoubtedly the most politically incorrect person in American public life so she will be celebrated on this blog
I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.
I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take chidren away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass
Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"
Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!
Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.
Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."
The Supreme Court of the United States is now and always has been a judicial abomination. Its guiding principles have always been political rather than judicial. It is not as political as Stalin's courts but its respect for the constitution is little better. Some recent abuses: The "equal treatment" provision of the 14th amendment was specifically written to outlaw racial discrimination yet the court has allowed various forms of "affirmative action" for decades -- when all such policies should have been completely stuck down immediately. The 2nd. amendment says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed yet gun control laws infringe it in every State in the union. The 1st amedment provides that speech shall be freely exercised yet the court has upheld various restrictions on the financing and display of political advertising. The court has found a right to abortion in the constitution when the word abortion is not even mentioned there. The court invents rights that do not exist and denies rights that do.
Consider two "jokes" below:
Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?
A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"
Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:
Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?
A. They are both religious fundamentalists"
The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".
One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.
It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.
The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin
On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.
I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.
I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!
Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds
