More of that GREAT multiculturalism in Britain

Aras Hussein appears in court accused of beheading 18-year-old woman then attacking five people while he was being treated in hospital.  I kinda think I can guess Mr Hussein's religion.  "Aras" appears to be mainly a Turkish given name

A 20-year-old man has appeared in court charged with the murder of a young woman who was beheaded in a knife attack.  Aras Hussein appeared at Sheffield Magistrates' Court today accused of murdering Reema Ramzan, 18.

Miss Ramzan, who was from the Darnall area of Sheffield, died on June 4 following an incident at a property on Herries Road, in the city.

Detectives said she suffered a severe knife attack resulting in fatal injuries, including the severing of her head.

Hussein, of Sheffield, is also charged with assaulting five people at Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital, where he was taken following his arrest by police.

He stood in the glass-fronted dock today flanked by two uniformed police officers.  Sporting full beard and short, dark hair, he wore a navy blue T-shirt and spoke only to confirm his personal details and that he understood the charge.

Hussein was remanded in custody following a 10 minute hearing and told he will appear again a Sheffield Crown Court on Thursday.

Miss Ramzan’s family issued a statement through police today.

It said: 'Following the death of Reema, a loving and caring daughter and sister, we as a family would like to pass on our heartfelt thanks for all of the messages and support we have received from our extended family, friends, people in the community where we live and especially from the staff and students at Sheffield College.

'These messages and support have given us strength and helped us to try to deal with the nightmare we have found ourselves in.

'As a family, our thoughts now turn to being able to bury Reema and to let her finally rest in peace.

SOURCE






And there are female multiculturalists in Britain too



Shocking picture that 'shows two on-duty carers asleep in £580 a week home for the elderly after turning off elderly patients' alarms so they wouldn't be disturbed'

This picture shows the moment two carers were apparently found asleep after allegedly unplugging the alarms of elderly patients so that they would not be disturbed.

Titilayo Ajala and Henretta Offae are accused of falling asleep during their 9pm to 7am night-shift at Westlands care home in Olney, near Milton Keynes.

Aylesbury Crown Court was told that care home manager Salina Ballard and a colleague took the picture during an unannounced 3am check.

Ajala, 56, from Milton Keynes, and Offae, 41, from Derby, deny 19 counts of ill treatment or neglect of a person who lacks capacity, between January 1, 2011 and August 19, 2011.
A jury was shown this picture of two care home assistants

Shocking: A jury was shown this picture of two care home assistants Titilayo Ajala and Henretta Offae apparently asleep on the night-shift after allegedly unplugging the alarms of the elderly and infirm people

The prosecution alleges the defendants left their patients - aged from 75 years to 100 years - unable to call for help.

The prosecution told the jury the pair disabled alarms and put extra incontinence pads on the residents, so they could sleep and would not have to change their soiled garments.

No paperwork was filled out, which they were required to do in a night log, the jury was told.

The care home assistants were allegedly discovered fast asleep in lounge armchairs on August 19 with a fan heater running by their care home manager Salina Ballard.

The home, run by St Andrews Care Home Ltd, charges £580 pounds per week per patient.

Mr Moore told the hearing that mats were placed at the side of the residents' beds which would set off an alarm if they fell.

However, the prosecution says 11 of the mats had been disabled so if the residents had fallen in the night, no alarm would have sounded.

Prosecutor Neil Moore told the jury: 'The prosecution case, in a nutshell, is that when they worked together during [their shifts] they would disable alarm systems, which would otherwise alert them if one of these elderly residents fell out of their beds.

'They would pad the residents up with extra incontinence pads or place waterproof sheets on the bed so they didn't need to be changed.

'Basically, the two defendants would then tuck themselves up in warm clothing in front of a television in one of the lounges and have a night's sleep.  'Therefore, the prosecution says, putting the welfare of the elderly residents at risk.'

The 17th Century building caters for high risk elderly people who suffer from dementia or are unable to look after themselves.

The trial heard today that the carers were allowed a 45-minute break, but not at the same time.  Mr Moore said it was considered 'gross misconduct' if they slept.

Offae, who was known by the name Mapel Mensah, of St Chad's Road, Derby, worked at the home from October 24, 2010, and Ajala, of Fishermead, Milton Keynes, joined on August 9, 2009.

Mr Moore said after Mrs Ballard and Ms May arrived at the home, they took it in turns to check on the residents, before taking a picture of the two defendants half an hour later.

The prosecutor told the court that when Ms Ajala woke up she said 'My God Salina, what are you doing here?'

He added: 'Mrs Ballard replied by telling her she had been watching her sleep for half an hour and informed her some of the fall pads had been unplugged.

'Mrs Ajala said: "Salina, Barbara, you have to forgive me."

'Ms Offae said: "I hold my hands up, you caught me. What we have done is inexcusable". They had been caught red-handed and Mrs Offae at that time accepted it.'

Both were dismissed from their jobs that day and were later arrested by police. Both women denied the allegations when they were quizzed by detectives.

Mr Moore said: 'They neglected each and every resident. They went to sleep, 11 pressure mat alarms had been disabled so if any of these had fallen in the night they wouldn't have been found until the defendants decided to wake up.

'None of the residents had the more absorbent night pads on, they hadn't been changed since the afternoon shift and not at midnight when they should have been.

'Some of residents were fitted with two incontinence pads which should never have been the case. Some had pads shoved underneath them.  'Pads were soaked with urine and in one case faeces.'

Giving evidence Mrs Ballard said sleeping on the job was 'absolutely forbidden.'

She said: 'It amounts to gross misconduct. We're responsible for our residents' well-being. They (the defendants) were there to do a job to protect them (the residents).'

Mrs Ballard refuted suggestions by the defence barristers that the defendants were not asleep and were dozing or 'resting their eyes' during a break.

'They were asleep,' she said. 'I was standing there for half an hour and I took a photo. I stood watching them sleeping.'

SOURCE






British Guides drop God and country – but keep the Queen

The Girl Guides are to drop references to “God” and “country” from their traditional pledge but are to retain a public expression of allegiance to the Queen.

In one of the biggest changes in the organisation’s 103-year history, the promise to “love my God” is to be replaced with a more individualistic pledge to “be true to myself” and to “develop my beliefs”.

And a patriotic commitment to serving their country is to become one to the “community” in the oath taken by Brownies and Guides when they join the organisation.

But in a consultation which attracted almost 44,000 responses Guides made clear that they wanted to retain a public expression of allegiance to the Queen, who is also their patron.

A vow to “help other people” and to “do my best” are also to remain in the new promise, which will take effect from September.

It is not the first time that the organisation, founded in 1909 under the leadership of Agnes Baden-Powell, sister of Robert Baden-Powell, the creator of the Scouting movement, has altered the wording of its traditional promise over the last century but it is by far the most radical change.

The rethink followed the appointment of the group’s new chief executive, Julie Bentley, the former head of The Family Planning Association, who described the Guides as “the ultimate feminist organisation”.

Gill Slocombe, the Chief Guide, said the changes would make the promise less “confusing” and easier for the organisation’s 550,000 members to take with sincerity.

“I honestly think the Baden-Powells would have approved, they were so free thinking and good at thinking in terms of people’s needs,” she said.

“I don’t know whether it is radical I just think it is fantastic that our members have come up with a promise that they feel they can confidently say and feel that they can keep.”

She said she was also “delighted” that, despite the reference to God being dropped, there would still be a spiritual dimension to the promise and that the Queen would continue to be a focus of unity.

Among responses to the consultation, one young girl wrote that she felt like she was “lying to the Brownies” by making a promise to a God in whom she did not believe.

Stephen Evans, campaigns manager at the National Secular Society, said: “By omitting any explicit mention of God or religion the Guide Association has grasped the opportunity to make itself truly inclusive and relevant to the reality of 21st century Britain.

"The new secular promise can now be meaningful and relevant to all guides and potential leaders, whatever their beliefs – and sends a clear signal that Girlguiding is equally welcoming to all girls."

But Andrea Williams of Christian Concern said: “It sounds like jargon from a consumerist self-help manual completely at odds with the true ethos of the Guiding organisation which was set up to encourage belief in God and a corporate identity, not about individualism but to understand what it really is to be part of a community.”

David Landrum, advocacy director of the Evangelical Alliance said: "No doubt, the Girls Brigade will be the main beneficiaries from this erroneous decision, because as the growing poplularity of faith schools attests, parents will always seek to provide religious rather than secular humanist values for their children."

SOURCE





Government spending cuts needed in Britain

Something is rotten in the state of Britain, but those who believe the problem is that the Government isn’t spending enough of our money have got it all wrong.

True, given our dilapidated infrastructure and health service, a visitor from Mars might be forgiven for thinking that public expenditure had been cut to the bone. Yet the sobering truth is that the public sector still spends almost half of our national income, in a shocking indictment of its inefficiency, misplaced priorities and intractable structural flaws.

Public expenditure was 49pc of GDP in 2012, the OECD calculates, almost as much as Sweden’s 51.3pc, and yet there is immense pressure for even greater amounts of spending, in the short as well as the longer term. The Office for Budget Responsibility has run various scenarios as part of its Fiscal Sustainability Report. Its central projection is that health spending will rise from 6.8pc of GDP in 2016-17 to 9.1pc by 2061-62 as the population ages. Even such a modest rise would devastate the public finances.

But new treatments, and the likelihood that productivity growth in the NHS will remain feeble, suggest that health’s share of national income could actually explode uncontrollably. Depending on the assumptions used, health spending could easily grab more than a 10th of national income – and quite possibly even a crippling 20pc to 25pc under extreme but plausible scenarios. This would sink the public finances and send the national debt to more than 350pc of GDP.

Population ageing will have other consequences. State pension costs will increase from 5.6pc of GDP to 8.3pc by 2061-62.

Even with public sector pension costs falling a little, that represents a substantial increase. Social care spending is meant to increase from 1.1pc of GDP to 2pc; the final bill is likely to be even higher now that the Government is becoming involved.

None of this includes the cost of other major projects such as high-speed rail and energy investments to prevent the lights from going out. Wherever we look, there is immense, pent-up demand for higher spending; this will eventually prove irresistible to whoever is in power.

If unchecked, the state’s size could rise by 5pc to 6pc of GDP on the rosiest of scenarios and most likely by 10pc to15pc.

To allow this would be madness. We need a much smaller state, not an even bigger one. No political party is telling the truth: sooner or later, the welfare state as we know it will become unsustainable – and keeping it on life support for as long as possible, trimming on the margins while taxing until the pips squeak will only plunge us into a vicious spiral of decline.

What we need is a drastic new programme of cuts, accompanied by a radical restructuring of the way key services are financed, delivered and managed.

There are various ways this could be achieved – but here are my own 10 favourite ideas ahead of next week’s spending review. Some would help shrink today’s deficit; others address longer-term challenges.

1. First, the easy one: George Osborne must set up a commission on public spending. Paradoxically, this body needs to have a decent budget to hire consultants and accountants to plough through all public spending, uncovering as many savings as possible, waging war on non-jobs, waste, poor contracts, restrictive practices, duplication and useless expenditure. Prizes should also be offered for money-saving ideas from within the public sector.

2. Next, the Government needs to be remodelled. Councils would benefit from economies of scale by merging, if not entirely then at least their back offices. In a paper for the Free Enterprise Group, Dominic Raab, the Tory MP, wants to merge or abolish a number of Whitehall departments, cutting the total from 20 to 11 and saving £8bn a year.

3. Subsidies to business, green energy, the arts, foreign aid and pseudo-charities should be slashed. Eventually, a shift in the UK’s relationship with the European Union would allow additional savings in our contributions to Brussels. The TaxPayers’ Alliance’s latest Bumper Book of Government Waste lists many projects and areas that are ripe for pruning.

4. There should be further cuts to benefits and welfare reform. The richest 10th of households are in receipt of almost £5bn in cash benefits a year, according to Mike Denham’s Burning Our Money. The think-tank Reform puts the cost of middle-class welfare at £31bn a year. Prosperous pensioners should not be getting free TV licences or treated better than the rest of the public.

5. The Coalition has improved the way the Government purchases supplies, but more is needed. The Institute of Directors recommends centralising buying to manage key relationships and contracts. There should also be increased tendering: by law, anything that can be provided more cheaply by the private sector should be contracted out, albeit with proper, tight contracts. This could save billions.

6. It is also time for a further 10pc cut to all non-frontline public sector staff numbers, new contracts to boost working hours and productivity, the end of national pay scales and another two years of genuine pay freezes. In the interest of fairness as well as fiscal prudence, the aim must be to eliminate the pay gap with the private sector, which sees state employees paid significantly more on average. Their pension contributions also remain insufficient to fund liabilities, which must be rectified.

7. The private sector should build all new airports, rail links, motorways and tunnels, charging consumers; private firms should be allowed to develop shale gas and other kinds of commercially viable energy, with subsidies for other kinds of electricity phased out.

8. As to pensions, the sensible solution is to ditch the triple-lock, raise the retirement age to 70, starting as soon as 2030, and move towards an Australian or Singaporean-style system where people save for their own retirement. The new National Employment Savings Trust (Nest) system could be used as a starting point.

9. We also need to get more for less in education. That means taking all schools away from local government control, increasing parent choice and allowing for-profit companies to set up and run taxpayer-funded schools more efficiently. Technology needs to be used to boost productivity, with increased online learning co-ordinated by teachers.

10. Most controversially of all, the only way we are going to spend more on health without bankrupting the state is to encourage the public to pay more itself, as already happens in almost every other country. We need a European-style, insurance-based universal health system, with co-payments by those who can afford it and much greater private provision. Everybody should have access to high quality health care, regardless of ability to pay, but it will no longer be possible to provide it all through the NHS.

The UK is facing a terrifying public spending time bomb, and our mismanaged, sprawling government needs radical reform.

Trimming waste isn’t enough: now is the time to start thinking the unthinkable about what functions we want the state to perform in the years ahead.

SOURCE

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

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

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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Multiculturalism thriving in the Netherlands

Six teenage footballers and a father are jailed for kicking volunteer linesman to death after he officiated his son's junior match in Holland.  Unusually for the Daily Mail, there are no pictures of the offenders, but we are told that they come from a "a mostly immigrant neighborhood".  We read in a Dutch source, however, that the offenders were:

"all of North African origin. Their names: Yassine, Soufyan, Ibrahim Fady, Daveryon, and Mohammed Othman".  The name of the father was "El-Hasan D."  The Netherlands has a large and aggressive Muslim minority

Six young footballers and one of their fathers have been jailed for beating a linesman to death as he officiated his son's junior match in the Netherlands.

Richard Nieuwenhuizen, 41, from Buitenboys, died after being punched and kicked by players from opponents Nieuw Sloten on December 2 last year, apparently because they believed he had made a bad decision.

A Dutch court convicted the seven people involved of manslaughter in the death of the volunteer linesman who was knocked to the ground and repeatedly kicked after a youth match last December in a brutal attack.

Judges in Lelystad sentenced the 50-year-old father to six years in prison. Five teenaged players were given two-year sentences in youth detention for their roles in the attack and another was sentenced to a year.

A seventh player, age 15, was sentenced to 30 days detention for assault.

All the defendants had insisted they were innocent. They have two weeks to appeal. Their lawyers had argued that the linesman, Richard Nieuwenhuizen, had an underlying medical condition that contributed to his death but Dutch forensic experts said he died as a result of the beating.

Judges said the young players acted together in the fatal beating and gave them the highest sentences available.

'The seriousness of the event, the lack of a clear reason for it, the terrible consequences, the fact that they haven't accepted responsibility for their acts and the enormous shock it caused throughout society and the entire football world meant that the minors received the maximum possible sentence,' the court said in a statement.

The fatal attack took place on December 2 in the Dutch city of Almere, after the home team Buitenboys drew 2-2 with Nieuw Sloten, which is based in a mostly immigrant neighborhood of Amsterdam.

In a statement, the court said the father sentenced to six years had received a heavy punishment because 'instead of setting a good example to the youths by criticizing their behavior he joined them in kicking and beating the linesman and has never accepted responsibility' for his actions.

Nieuwenhuizen's death triggered a bout of soul-searching in Dutch football and beyond about the loss of respect for sports officials among youth players. 'You can't imagine it happening,' said Ajax coach Frank de Boer. 'That boys of 15, 16 years short circuit like that. You wonder about the parenting.'  [Why the shock?  It was nothing to do with the Dutch.  It was just Muslims doing what many Muslims do]

More than 12,000 people attended a silent march for Nieuwenhuizen in Almere on December 9.

'What can I do to teach today's football youth the difference between anger and aggression?' said Dutch football association chairman Michael van Praag at a ceremony afterwards. 'Football is emotion, but it's also winning and losing. You have to be able to do both, otherwise you don't fit in our sport.'

Nieuwenhuizen's sons said Monday they hoped the convictions would send a message around the world that such attacks should not be tolerated in sport.

SOURCE






Are we caught in a happy trap?

Happy ever after: We want it for ourselves, we want it for our kids, and we want it now. But what if everything we know about happiness is a lie? What if the relentless pursuit of pleasure is in fact making us miserable?

A growing number of psychologists and social researchers now believe that the "feel-good, think positive" mindset of the modern self-help industry has backfired, creating a culture where uncomfortable emotions are seen as abnormal. And they warn that the concurrent rise of the self-esteem movement - encouraging parents to shower their children with praise - may be creating a generation of emotionally fragile narcissists.

Some therapists believe this positivity obsession is partly to blame for rising rates of binge drinking, drug use and obesity. The more that genuine contentment eludes us, the more we seek to fill the gap with manufactured highs. But as we try to anaesthetise feelings of sadness, failure and disappointment, our rates of depression and anxiety continue to climb.

"So many people now think, 'If I'm not happy, there's something wrong with me.' We seem to have forgotten that feelings are like the weather - changing all the time; it's as normal to feel unhappy as it is to have rainy days," said Russ Harris, a British-born Australian doctor and author of The Happiness Trap, in which he argues popular wisdom on happiness is misleading and destined to make you miserable. "Painful emotions are increasingly seen as unnatural and abnormal and we refuse to accept that we can't always get what we want."

As the "happiness industry" of life coaches and self-help gurus has exploded, parents have been taught that self-esteem is the cardinal virtue for raising well-adjusted kids.

But it has had unexpected consequences. Researchers say the value of hard work has been replaced by the belief that every child is "special" - a phenomenon fuelled by rampant consumerism and reality TV shows, which promise: "If you want it enough you can have anything."

Some of the world's leading happiness experts now fear that the self-esteem juggernaut will leave future generations hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with life's disappointments.

On Wednesday, some of those experts will converge on Melbourne for the Happiness and Its Causes conference. Among the delegates will be

Harris, and Carol Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford University. "More and more, parents are unwilling to let their children struggle," she says. "They want them to feel good at all times so they're telling them how smart they are, they're really showering them with what we call person praise - 'you're talented, you're smart, you're special.' My research shows it backfires. It makes kids worried and tells them that the name of the game is to be smart.

"Then, when we give them harder problems they don't do well and they lie about their performance because their ego gets so wrapped up in all of this. But if we give them what we call process praise - 'you focused well, you tried hard, you used good strategies' - then it makes them want hard things, where they can apply their effort and strategies and be resilient."

Professor Dweck urges parents to talk to their children not just about their victories but their struggles. Like Harris, she maintains that accepting setbacks and unpleasant emotions, rather than trying to block them out, is the key to building resilience.

Already, clinicians are seeing the first casualties of the self-esteem movement entering therapy.

In a 2011 Atlantic article, US psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb reported that many young adults - largely from happy, loving, advantaged homes - were feeling confused, anxious and empty due to overprotective parenting that focused too much on happiness and shielded them from adversity. Thrust into the real world, even minor setbacks became catastrophic.

Australian social researcher Hugh Mackay addresses these issues in his latest book, The Good Life: What Makes a Life Worth Living, and says we must look beyond the pursuit of success and happiness as life's main aspirations.

He believes that the self-help movement, which took off in the 1980s as a well-meaning antidote to rising rates of depression in Western society - born out of a turbulent period of social, economic and technological change - has morphed into a beast that sells happiness as a commodity.

"It's been hijacked by the pop psychology movement to suggest that we've all got to look for positive outcomes, that we've all got to be bright, shining optimists and extroverts. It's become an industry - there are conferences about it and a whole spate of books and talk shows and people on the lecture circuit who are feeding this idea that one of our emotions [happiness] is sovereign and that should be our default position."

Instead of viewing happiness as an entitlement, Mackay maintains that a sense of wholeness and meaning is what brings satisfaction. Indeed, he points out that even those in the Buddhist faith are starting to question the Dalai Lama's tenet that the very purpose of life is to seek happiness.

"We have to nurture our relationships, our engagements with other people, our responsibility for other people's wellbeing - that's what nurtures community, and we are sustained by those communities," Mackay says. "If we focus only on happiness we're neglecting the richness of the full emotional spectrum and we're overlooking the fact that you couldn't make sense of happiness if you didn't know sadness."

New Zealand psychologist Chris Skellett knows this only too well. His book, When Happiness Is Not Enough, explores how a fulfilling life can only be achieved by balancing being happy in the moment, with a drive towards longer-term goals.

When he speaks at the conference this week it will be from a position of tragic, lived experience. Last month, his 21-year-old son Henry died suddenly and unexpectedly. While processing overwhelming grief, his understanding of the importance of the full range of human emotions has never been greater.

"The loss gives you access to a wonderful array of very real human experiences, especially the connection between people," Skellett say. "Sadness is tinged with an incredibly profound depth of appreciation of life. You're acutely aware of what's important. A lot of the things that preoccupied me before seem rather trite and superficial now. Now, I'm much more connected to the little things. I'm much more profoundly moved by music. A walk in the evening just seems like a gift."

SOURCE





New British law will 'protect gay marriage critics': Act will help those who believe marriage should be 'between a man and a woman'


Critics of gay marriage are to get a new protection in law, senior government sources say.

Culture Secretary Maria Miller is said to be about to propose changing the Public Order Act so those who believe same-sex weddings are wrong can say so publicly without fear of prosecution.

The move is part of government attempts to prevent legislation running into further trouble as it progresses through Parliament.

Faith minister Baroness Warsi abstained in a key vote in the House of Lords, telling friends that religious groups needed extra protection.

Now the Culture Secretary is preparing to amend the Public Order Act so it is ‘clear that people will be protected who want to express their belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman’, a source said.

Protections in the Act that exist for critics of ‘sexual orientation’ will be updated to cover same-sex marriage, it is understood.

‘It addresses the concern that there will be a chilling effect so that people, such as those of faith, will be afraid to express their views in public.’

The Government’s amendment is expected to be confirmed by Lords whip Baroness Stowell during the committee stage of the Bill, which starts today.

The Department for Culture, which oversees the legislation, refused to comment on the plan. But during a Commons debate last month, Mrs Miller signalled the Government’s thinking.

Referring to Britain’s tradition of tolerance and ‘rich tapestry of faith, belief and culture’, she said: ‘It is because of these strong traditions that enabling same-sex couples to marry will in no way undermine those who believe... that marriage should be between a man and a woman, they can continue to believe that. That is their right.’

Today’s move will be seen as an attempt to heal rifts over gay marriage.

The Government has also suggested it would consider measures to address concerns that teachers might have to promote same-sex marriage despite conscientious objections.

Veteran Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh, said on the ConservativeHome website that same-sex civil marriage had done ‘irreparable damage’ to Tory electoral prospects.

‘Some of the damage can be healed by ensuring there are adequate protections for conscientious objectors, especially chaplains, teachers, and registrars,’ he said.

SOURCE






Risky history

I was sacked from a museum teaching about the Roman Army, a job I had done for 3 years. The subject: ‘The Roman Army’…

    My crime? Teaching an ‘inappropriate’ military subject, the Roman Army. I even showed the museum’s own leaflet advertising the events, saying ‘Learn about the Roman Army from one of UK’s leading experts’.  Did no good. I got the sack.

    I hold two degrees in the subject, a doctorate, and have appeared on TV and film as a scholar and commentator. Even that did not protect me.

    I also got into trouble because when asked by a Moslem school pupil, ‘Why were Moslems not in the Roman Army?’ I replied ‘because Islam came into existence 500 years after the period’ I was talking about. My Archaeological Society received a letter stating I had made a racist comment. These events rook place some years ago but now it is all too commonplace. And people simply put up with it.

    A few weeks ago, at an exhibition of Roman cooking, using food ingredients from the day, a Moslem family complained about the use of pork and ‘wine vinegar’ in their presence.

    In that case the organisers had the guts to ask them then, ‘Why do you visit the site, when you should know that such ancient methods will be used? Do you expect us to change 2,000-year-old methods, just to suit you out of the thousands of visitors we get?’

    Thankfully, we never had a letter of complaint. But I think this bodes ill for the future, where we will have to change even the past to suit Moslem sensitivities.   Mad! Absolutely mad…

SOURCE

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

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

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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'Fathers are treated as mere sperm donors': Captain Corelli's Mandolin author hits out at family courts

Father's Day has become a day of sorrow and anger for many because family courts treat men like 'sperm donors', the best-selling author of Captain Captain Corelli's Mandolin has claimed.

Louis de Bernieres, 58, argues that Father's Day goes by completely unnoticed by many children as a man's role in the family is being made to seem increasingly unimportant.

And, on the annual celebration of fatherhood, he has slammed the courts for treating 'fathers heartlessly as mere sperm donors and bankers' and for always favouring the rights of mothers.

He said: 'For too many men, Father's Day is a day of sorrow, frustration and anger, and for too many children it passes unnoticed.'

The author, who has previously spoken about his own struggle to see his children after splitting from their mother, also blamed 'political incorrectness' for making a father's role seem irrelevant.

He argued that the vital role of fathers is left out of literature for new parents and from teaching at school - instead concentrating on the importance of the mother.

In a letter to the Sunday Telegraph, he wrote: 'In schools nobody tells boys that fathering is the most important and responsible thing they will ever do, nor that, when done well, fatherhood bestows upon you the deepest, most satisfying and fun relationships of your life.

'The only explanation for this neglect is terror of the political incorrectness of offending single mothers, and the general mythologising of fathers as irrelevant and feckless abusers.'

He called for fathers to be included in education about parenthood and for their role in 'children's lives to be properly respected'.

Mr de Bernieres has been campaigning for equal custody rights for fathers for several years after revealing he was left 'suicidal' after splitting from the mother of his children.

In 2010, the patron of Families Need Fathers (FNF) told how difficult it was for him see his young children, Robin and Sophie, after his 11-year-relationship with Cathy Gill, an actress and theatre director, broke down in 2009.

In newsletter sent out by FNF, he said that mothers do not have a 'divine right to own the children' and called for equal parenting to be the normal arrangement for parting couples.

He said: 'It was really dreadful.  'The worst thing, practically, was finding the house so quiet, because it was always so full of laughter and rampaging and stampeding.  'There was always a lot of noise and fun, and it suddenly went quiet.  'The emotional desolation is hard to describe.

'There were many times when I felt suicidal. One of the most extreme things you feel is a fantastically deep, bitter, anger at being treated so outrageously.'

SOURCE





Shut half of British government departments and save billions, says Dominic Raab

Nearly half of the departments in Whitehall should be shut to save billions of pounds and avoid cuts to frontline services, a Tory MP has said.

Dominic Raab MP suggested that the numbers of departments should be cut from 20 to 11, which if combined with a one per cent public sector pay cap would save £10billion a year.

Under Mr Raab’s plan the Home Office and Ministry of Justice would be merged into one department, reversing a split which happened under Gordon Brown in 2007.

Similarly the Foreign Office and Department for International Development, as well as the departments for Energy and Climate Change, and Environment, Fisheries and Rural Affairs would be merged.

The culture and transport departments would be combined, as well as the Communities and Local Goverment and the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish offices.

Writing for The Daily Telegraph, Mr Raab said: “Britain doesn’t need such a bloated bureaucracy. By slashing the number of government departments – from 20 to 11 - we could cut a huge amount of waste without sacrificing front line services.

“We need an overhaul of Whitehall. The UK has twenty separate government departments. That is high by international standards: the US has 15, Japan 12, Germany 14, while even high-spending Sweden only has twelve.

“As well as inflating public spending, the proliferation of departments encourages mandarins to amass self-serving fiefdoms, fuels excessive regulation, and hampers a joined-up approach to policy-making in cross-cutting areas.”

Mr Raab added that “some departments, like DCMS - which also includes the pointless Government Equalities Office - and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), don’t merit separate bureaucracies with all their associated costs, churning out red-tape.

“In other areas, the proliferation of Whitehall silos hampers coordinated policy making. Too often, for example, the Department for International Development has operated a shadow foreign policy – it should be put back under the wing of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

“Likewise, do we really need two departments for the environment? In practice, it dislocates energy and de-carbonisation policy from vital task of strengthening UK environmental resilience, such as flood and coastal defences.”

The news came as a Government-commissioned report said the Prime Minister should be given the power to appoint the most senior civil servants who run Whitehall departments, a Government-commissioned report recommended.

The IPPR think-tank said Cabinet ministers should also be able to appoint an “extended office” of staff who work directly for them comprising political advisers and non-partisan outside experts as well as career civil servants.

The proposals are intended to make officials more accountable and responsive to ministers without undermining the fundamental commitment to a non-partisan, merit-based Civil Service.

They are likely, nevertheless, to prove highly contentious and provoke fresh accusations that ministers are trying to politicise Whitehall.

The recruitment process for permanent secretaries would still be overseen by the independent Civil Service Commission which would be responsible for drawing up a short list of suitable candidates.

However the final selection would be made by the Prime Minister who, the report argues, is the person best placed to pick the key personnel who are needed to ensure the successful delivery of his political programme.

The successful candidates would be given fixed-term four-year contracts which would be renewable depending on performance.

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude, who commissioned the report, welcomed the proposals, describing them as “evolutionary” and saying they went “with the grain of our Westminster system”.

SOURCE




Sad when it takes a Russian leader to puncture European fantasies

He’s no Milton Friedman, but he’s right about the welfare state

"Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking ahead of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland on 17-18 June, said his country would not follow the mistakes of Europe that led to the eurozone crisis. In a wide-ranging interview he blamed the EU’s “mentality” for endangering the economy and the “moral basics of society”. …

Asked if Europe’s welfare state model can be competitive today, Putin said Europe is living beyond its means, losing control of the economic situation and that Europe’s structural distortions were “unacceptable” to Russia. “Many European countries are witnessing a rise of [the] dependency mentality when not working is often much more beneficial than working. This type of mentality endangers not only the economy but also the moral basics of the society. It is not a secret that many citizens of less developed countries come to Europe intentionally to live on social welfare,” Putin said."

It’s hard to disagree with anything Putin says in that passage.

Seems like he understands that Europe made a big mistake by having too many people in the wagon and too few people pulling the wagon.

SOURCE




Depardieu: Never mind Russia, it’s France that’s “almost Bolshevik”

Remember the saga of Gerard Depardieu, the wealthy and much-maligned French actor who had the nerve to seek residence (and, presumably, a lower tax burden) elsewhere? French Socialist politicians flipped their lids when the well-known actor headed for the exits, and even though he hasn’t completely renounced his French citizenship, the actor was pretty clear in a recent interview that nobody has succeeded in guilt-tripping him into backing down. Via The Independent:

In his first lengthy press interview since he announced six months ago that he was “sending back” his French passport, Mr Depardieu said he now saw himself as a “citizen of the world”. …

Last December the actor engaged in a public slanging match with the Socialist government in France after announcing that he intended to live in Belgium to avoid high French taxes. In his interview yesterday with the Journal du Dimanche, he denied that he was a “tax exile”. He said that he still paid 30 per cent of his income in French taxes – but not the 87 per cent that he claimed he would have to pay if he lived full-time in his native country. …

France, he said, was “almost a Bolshevik country”, in view of the “hidden scandals” such as that of the former Budget minister Jerome Cahuzac, who avoided taxes by having an illegal bank account abroad.

Well, I don’t know about this guy specifically — getting all buddy-buddy with Vladimir Putin does feel pretty sketchy — but the point is, more central-planning does tend to lead to more corruption and plutocracy, and that the Socialist French government is delusional if they think that wealthy individuals and businesses are going to wait around patiently for the government to serve them with still more decrees about how it’s their duty to pay a still larger majority of their income to sputtering, stalled-out mess that is the inefficient and extravagant bureaucracy. Neither economic pragmatism nor some misbegotten sense of patriotism are going to stop people from making choices in their own rational self-interest, no matter how much outrageous outrage Socialist politicians care to muster.

And speaking of merely that latest of Socialist French President Francois Hollande’s litany of political problems, the WSJ has the scoop:

The French government kicked off a fresh round of talks on Friday to overhaul the country’s state-backed pension fund, the fourth attempt in a decade to fix a generous but underfinanced system.

The effort will test the ability of the Socialist President François Hollande to push through painful measures. Although his predecessor, the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, increased the standard pension age to 62 from 60 in 2010, the government says it is imperative to consider new changes.

Without revision, the retirement of waves of baby boomers, combined with the increase in life expectancy, will leave the pension fund with a €20 billion ($27 billion) deficit in 2020—about 1% of the country’s gross domestic product."

SOURCE

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

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

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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

Interview with Helen Smith on men's role

Any man well-advised about British and American divorce laws would NEVER marry.  To do so is putting his neck in a noose.  And women wonder why men won't "commit"  -- JR

John Hawkins

Helen Smith is one of best writers in the business about men’s rights issues and her new book, Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters, is a must read masterpiece on the subject.

I was very pleased to get the opportunity to interview Helen about her book and what follows is a slightly edited transcript of our conversation.

Q. The standard liberal feminist response to a book like this is that men have every advantage over women and I know you don’t agree. Tell women why men don’t have every advantage and why they certainly don’t feel like they have every advantage.

A. Well if you’ve ever read Warren Farrell’s book, The Myth of Male Power, it talks about some of the issues that men have faced over the years. Men go to war, men tend to make up more of a homeless population. We always think of men at the top, but actually that’s not really true. Men are at the top and they’re at the bottom and the thing is, a lot of times women tend to be in the middle.

But what happens is women look up and they say, “Oh, a few men are at the top.” Well, like Scott Adams wrote in the Dilbert cartoons, “Those are other men.” The average man himself is looking around and saying, “You know what? I don’t have such a good deal anymore.” And we don’t know that they ever really did.

Believe it or not, 100 years ago or more, if their wife did something they would actually be held accountable and put in jail. So a lot of times what we think is a horrible injustice against women is actually also an injustice against men because if men didn’t keep a woman in line, the government or the establishment would put them in jail for something that a woman did.

But we always look at things in terms only through the lens of what do women need and what do women want and we don’t turn it around and say, what’s the right thing for men?

Q. If a man came to you and he said listen, “I think marriage is great there’s no downside to it.” What would you say to him? Not telling him not to do it, but maybe saying, “Have you thought about the other side of this?” What are some of the negatives for men in marriage that are making men less likely to marry?

A. Well, the first negatives are the legal ones. If man does get divorced, he’s much more likely to pay alimony. For example, about 97 percent of alimony is paid by men, only about 3 percent of by women. Men tend to lose with their children more often. Only about 10 percent of men get custody of their children if there’s a divorce. In marriage, …if a man finds out a couple of years down the line that the child isn’t his, the state, in certain states — not most states — a man can be forced to pay for that child even though that child is not his. At the same time, if he wants a vasectomy — now this one is hard because it’s actually not on the books — but if a married man goes to a doctor and wants a vasectomy, most doctors in this country will not perform a vasectomy unless that man gets his wife to sign off.

…If he wants to leave the marriage, a woman can just point her finger and tell her lawyer that a man committed child abuse, domestic abuse — and a lot of times it’s just taken as a given. If a woman wants a restraining order against a man in a marriage, men most often are taken to jail when you know the woman calls the police. However, studies actually show that violence in domestic relations is almost 50% from men and 50% from women. If a woman gets angry for any reason, she can simply accuse a man and men are just assumed guilty in our society.

The other thing is psychological reasons. Men’s self-esteem suffers more than women when they don’t see their friends as often and that’s because women tend to congregate a little more. When men lose contact with those friends, their mental and you know their psychological health can suffer from that. Men are also generally given the worst part of the house once kids come along. The man is kind of put downstairs to the basement, whether he wants to be there or not. Now sure, a lot of men might enjoy the basement but they shouldn’t be forced down there.

In my work over the years, I’ve actually seen men who hang around outside or they’ll say, “I don’t mind being outside in the garage,” but the minute they get a divorce they’re right back in that house and wanting the full use of it.

So, I do think that there are a lot of issues that men want to consider when they think about marriage because in our society if you make a mistake and if you’re a man, there’s a lot more at stake. If you’re a woman and you make a mistake, yes it can be bad, but the state is with you, you probably are going to get your children, you probably are going to get some child support, it’s more than likely you’re not going to be kicked out of your house. There’s even more support for you. There are a lot of organizations to help women, there are almost none to help men.

Q. One of the biggest issues, because it impacts people throughout their whole life is that women have surpassed men in college. There are more women graduating then men — and that’s an every year thing. This is huge because we have such a highly educated workforce. If you don’t get that college degree it can literally put you behind for your entire life. Why do you think men are falling behind at college?

A. Well, there are a number of reasons and one of them is proposed by Christina Hoff Sommer, who wrote The War Against Boys. And what she says is that a lot of these colleges have become very woman oriented and a lot of the classes that we have are more oriented towards women.

In a lot of the schools, I think boys actually lose out earlier. We don’t teach boys to like school, to want to be in school. …And the other thing is that they make worse grades. There was a study at the London School of Economics and they found that boys actually get worse grades if they’re taught by females and since only 15 percent of elementary school teachers are men, most of the teachers boys have during the day are women. Those women tend to describe boy’s behavior as much worse than they would the girls. They also tend to give those boys lower marks. I’m talking in generalities, but a lot of times boys don’t emphasize the same types of things. For example they’re not as rule oriented, where they do everything they’re told to do. They’re less likely to sit still. They’re more likely to learn a little bit differently. And the schools are more oriented towards the way that girls learn and boys are sort of told to sit down, keep quiet, and read Toni Morrison.

There are really just very few boys who are that interested in that type of situation, and these high schools are not geared towards boys. There are boys who fall through the cracks, don’t further their education and like you say, it’s a shame because those boys do tend to make less. They tend to end up in jail. They tend to just do worse in life in general and we in our society we say that those boys aren’t important. I do want to point out that in addition to white boys, you’d think people of the liberal persuasion would at least care about the minority boys. But apparently that’s not even enough to get you any help.

Q. There was a funny phrase you used in the book, dripping with contempt each time you used it — it’s called an Uncle Tim. Tell people what an Uncle Tim is.

A. Well, an Uncle Tim is just a male sell-out. …They are either are guys who just want to get laid and they just go along with whatever women want to say because they figure, “Oh, if this woman thinks I’m a feminist type, she’ll want to have sex with me.” Then there’s the other type that benefit because they’re either political or because their job makes it easier to go along with the whole feminist bent. In politics, especially in Democratic politics, it’s just much easier. Remember women make up a majority of Democratic voters. So you have to sort of placate them and so I think that we see a lot of Uncle Tim’s in Democratic politics.

But I don’t think that’s to negate the other side of it, which are the conservatives. I’m talking about white knights. If you actually read the men’s rights blogs, and I’m sure you do, they talk a lot about white knights and a white knight is just simply the more the chivalrous type. They approve of things like the Violence Against Women Act because they like to see men as the big bad wolf that women need protecting from. I think they see women more as needing protection and not as being strong and independent.

Q. One of the things I have long believed is that women already had their basic revolution in behavior in the 60s when they’ve got out into the job market and so they’ve had this big change in their behavior. I don’t see that same change in men. To me, men basically seem to look at things the same way they did and think about things the same way they did 50 years ago. So I think there’s a big change coming in society. And so I’m just reading a little passage from your book,

“Men are opting out, bailing out, and going on strike in response to the attack on their gender. A society can’t spend more than 40 years tearing down almost half the population and expect them to respond with, “give me another” forever.”

So what is the response? Where do you see this going with men? What do you see men doing in response to this? What’s the men’s revolution?

A. According to Warren Farrell, he talks about the revolution as two parts. There’s an economic one, where men really feel that they’re being held down and at the same time, there’s a psychological one in that men really feel that they’ve lost respect, there isn’t a whole lot there for them and they feel sort of downtrodden. I think as you see that more, I think those are the two issues that are really going to propel men forward to speak up for their own needs.

Because in the past, men have never really spoken up for their own needs. They’ve always worried about the community and what women and children need, but I think that men are starting to put some of their needs first and it’s not a selfish thing. I think I’m looking at it more in terms of political and legal aspects because I don’t see how anyone in the United States of America can say it’s OK to treat one gender worse.

There was a “Dear Colleague” letter that was sent out in 2011 by the Obama administration telling those colleges that take federal funds that they want them to lower the standards of evidence to one that says if there is a school that thinks or if a man is accused of a sexual assault, all they need to believe is that it was 50+1 percent true. Even a criminal has more rights than a young man on our college campuses today and I don’t see how people can think in the United States of America that it’s OK to have young men’s due process rights destroyed this way or that it’s OK for 50,000 men on any given day to be in jail for child support arrears. I thought we got rid of debtor’s prisons, but apparently it’s alive and well in the feminist states of America.

I’m not against feminism. I think feminism has done something wonderful themes for women, but at the same time what feminism has become is special privileges for women and more responsibilities for men. It’s just its unfair. I think people who believe that we can hold one gender down while elevating the other one are going to collapse our society at some point.

SOURCE






Multiculturalism thriving in Britain



A gang of drug dealers who enjoyed a millionaire lifestyle after flooding the capital with more than £5.5million worth of heroin have been jailed for a total of 72 years.

The pushers bought a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, a £21,000 Rolex watch and designer threads from Paris after raking in a fortune running a string of drugs factories.

They also drove supercars including a Lamborghini and amassed an impressive collection of Dom Perignon and Cristal champagne, worth £700 a bottle.

A total of 55.62kg, worth an estimated street value of more than £5.5million, was seized during a series of raids across London and Kent.

The gang brazenly photographed themselves with the ‘spoils’ of their crimes, posing to show off the soles of their designer shoes and wearing three Rolexes, said prosecutor Kerry Broom.

The supply operation, busted in February this year, was led by Warren Desmangles, described as ‘pretty close to the top of the tree’.

The gang brazenly photographed themselves with the ‘spoils’ of their crimes, posing to show off their three Rolexes, said prosecutor Kerry Broom

The 31-year-old was jailed for 16 years in March this year, while drugs courier Dalwar Davis, 30, received a nine-year prison sentence.

Alistair Odoi, 37, and Duane Watson, 30, were each jailed for a total of 17 years on Friday.  Desmangles’ cousin, Darren Husbands, 33, who acted as a courier, received a seven-year term, while Jason Willis, 25, got six years.

Sentencing Desmangles and Davis, Judge Anthony Leonard QC said: ‘You enjoyed the luxury trappings including watches which cost five figures to buy, and a Rolex worth £21,000.

‘You enjoyed the benefit of Cristal champagne worth £700 a bottle, and Louis Vuitton trainers costing up to £795.  ‘It’s reasonable to assume you were living a millionaire lifestyle - you had that sort of money to spend.  ‘You were making vast profits from the trading of buying and selling heroin on a commercial scale.’

Drugs were stashed in a rented flat conveniently located in the same block as Desmangles’ home in Canary Wharf, east London, and also at Davis’ home in Chingford, east London.

After the duo were arrested, new factories were set up in Enfield, north London; Hackney, east London; and Dartford, Kent.

A hoard of paraphernalia was also discovered, including two presses and food processors, together with numerous kilos of cutting agents including caffeine and paracetamol, and money counting machines.

Davis, of Walthamstow, east London; Desmangles, of  Canary Wharf, east London; Odoi, of Stoke Newington, north London; Husbands, of Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire; Watson, of Tottenham, north London; and Willis, of Waltham Abbey, Essex, all admitted conspiracy to supply heroin.

Davis also admitted a further charge of possessing criminal property, as did Odoi, who also pleaded guilty to having a prohibited stun gun.

SOURCE






Britain is  too weak to face up to  extremism

It is less than a month since Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered in Woolwich, yet already the incident feels half-forgotten. In terms of the legal process, all is well. Two men have been charged. There will be a trial. No doubt justice will be done. But I have a sense that the horror felt at the crime is slipping away.

The media, notably the BBC, quickly changed the subject. After a day or two focusing on the crime itself, the reports switched to anxiety about the “Islamophobic backlash”. According to Tell Mamma, an organisation paid large sums by the Government to monitor anti-Muslim acts, “the horrendous events in Woolwich brought it [Islamophobia] to the fore”. Tell Mamma spoke of a “cycle of violence” against Muslims.

Yet the only serious violence was against a British soldier, who was dead. In The Sunday Telegraph, Andrew Gilligan brilliantly exposed the Tell Mamma statistics – most of them referred merely to nasty remarks on the web rather than actual attacks, many were not verified, no reported attack had required medical attention, and so on. Yet the “backlash” argument has sailed on, with people shaking their heads gravely about the need to “reassure” Muslims. Tell Mamma equates “hate inspired by al-Qaeda” with the “thuggery and hate of the EDL [the English Defence League]”.

A trap is set here, inviting those of us who reject such statements, to defend the EDL. I do not. While not, in its stated ideology, a racist organisation like the BNP, the EDL has an air of menace. It must feel particularly unpleasant for Muslims when its supporters hit the streets. But the EDL is merely reactive. It does not – officially at least – support violence. It is the instinctive reaction of elements of an indigenous working class which rightly perceives itself marginalised by authority, whereas Muslim groups are subsidised and excused by it. Four days ago, six Muslim men were sentenced at the Old Bailey for a plot to blow up an EDL rally. The news was received quietly, though it was a horrifying enterprise. No one spoke of “white-phobia”. Imagine the hugely greater coverage if the story had been the other way round.

All journalists experience this disparity. If we attack the EDL for being racist, fascist and pro-violence, we can do so with impunity, although we are not being strictly accurate. If we make similar remarks about Islamist organisations, we will be accused of being racist ourselves. “Human rights” will be thrown at us. We shall also – this has happened to me more than once – be subject to “lawfare”, a blizzard of solicitors’ letters claiming damages for usually imagined libels. Many powerful people in the Civil Service, local government, politics and the police, far from backing up our attacks on extremism, will tut-tut at our “provocative” comments.

Much more important – from the point of view of the general public – you frequently find that Muslim groups like Tell Mamma get taxpayers’ money (though, in its case, this is now coming to an end). You discover that leading figures of respectable officialdom share conference platforms with dubious groups. You learn that Muslim charities with blatantly political aims and Islamist links have been let off lightly by the Charity Commission. And you notice that many bigwigs in Muslim groups are decorated with public honours. Fiyaz Mughal, for example, who runs Tell Mamma, has an OBE. Obviously it would be half-laughable, half-disgusting, if activists of the EDL were indulged in this way; yet they are, in fact, less extreme than some of those Muslims who are.

More than two years ago, David Cameron delivered an important speech in Munich when he emphasised that Islamist terrorism arises from the poisoning of young minds. He said that extremism does not have to be violent for it to be dangerous. If it stirs up hate and spreads lies, it rolls the pitch for violent action. He wanted the Government’s counter-terrorism Prevent programme reviewed in this light.

The results were initially good. Grants were cut and people were denied access. But there was too little follow-through within government, Civil Service or police. Although consistently tough himself, Mr Cameron has not persuaded others to be the same. Seeking a sop for Lady Warsi, whom he wanted to demote from the Tory chairmanship, he made her the “minister for faith and communities” without thinking of its consequences for his Munich agenda. This strange job, which gave her a foothold in two government departments, has made her a spokesman on these issues. Yet Lady Warsi is very slow to condemn Muslim sectarianism and has appeared on the platform of FOSIS, the federation of Muslim students which has repeatedly given house room to extremism. Five subsequently convicted terrorists have held office in Muslim student societies in British universities, yet the university authorities usually disclaim any responsibility.

Malcolm Grant is the president of University College London, whose student Islamic society was run by the “Underpants Bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He resists the suggestion that he should prevent such extremism on his premises. Now, as well as UCL, Prof Grant manages to be chairman of NHS England. I predict a peerage very shortly, or at least a knighthood. I also predict that preachers of deadly hate will continue to operate easily in our universities under the banner of academic freedom. FOSIS encourages “community cohesion”, according to a universities spokesman.

I come back to the killing of Lee Rigby. This act of blatant, total barbarism on an English street in broad daylight shocked every decent person, but not quite enough. Almost as shocking as the bestial cruelty was the brazenness. When you saw young men with blood-soaked arms standing there and talking about what they said they had done, you knew that they would be arrested. But that was not as much comfort as it should have been. You also sensed that they had little fear: they felt that they almost had permission to act as they had done from a society too weak to make such an act unthinkable. They were, unfortunately, right to think that way.

In Britain today, extremists intuit that organised society is at a disadvantage to them. They understand that what makes them feel strong – the power of obnoxious ideas – is exactly what the authorities do not want to investigate and attack.

It is worrying, for example, that MI5 has a “behavioural sciences unit” to try to understand the psychology and anthropology of young terrorists, but no comparable unit studying ideology alone. It actually states on its website that the threat of subversion in Britain is “now [since the end of the Cold War] considered to be negligible”, and so it no longer investigates it. Intelligence agencies think in terms of state power, and they know that subversion by enemy states is not happening now. They have not adjusted to the new reality – subversion that goes way beyond states, the capture of hearts and minds by evil.

This weekend, Nelson Mandela is gravely ill. When he was a boy, his teacher – whose name was Wellington – replaced his African first name with that of a British hero: he called him Nelson. It stuck. Anti-imperialist though he is, Mandela was educated with a profound respect for the British culture of parliamentary democracy. It became, in many respects, his model for a multiracial South Africa. It arose from good beliefs inculcated early in life. In our own country today, almost the opposite happens. In our state schools, in mosques, on the internet, in university gatherings, many young people are taught to detest the freedom in which they live. Just as surely as good teaching, bad teaching has its power. We refuse even to face it, let alone to stop it.

SOURCE





Australia officially recognises third gender of 'intersex' on all documents for people who do not feel they are male or female

Australia has announced new guidelines to recognise the gender category 'intersex' on official documents.  Under the new system, which will come into effect from July 1, individuals will not be required to have undergone sex reassignment surgery or hormone therapy to select the new category.

Since 2011 Australian nationals who were biologically not entirely male or female, have been able to select 'X' as a gender category on their passports.

Transgender people have been able to pick whether they are male or female providing their choice is supported by a doctor.

The changes mean people will now have the option to select M (male), F (female) or X (Indeterminate/Intersex/Unspecified).

It follows a recommendation by the Australian Human Rights Commission in 2009 for the government to consider setting out guidelines for the collection of sex and gender information.

According to Australia's Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus the new guidelines will make it easier for people to establish or change their sex or gender in personal records held by federal government departments and agencies.

He said: 'We recognise individuals may identify, and be recognised within the community, as a gender other than the gender they were assigned at birth or during infancy, or as an indeterminate gender.  'This should be recognised and reflected in their personal records held by departments and agencies.'

If an Australian wants to change the gender entry on their personal record, the government will now accept a statement from their doctor or psychologist, a valid Australian passport or a state or territory birth certificate or other document which shows their preferred status.

Mr Dreyfus said:'Transgender and intersex people in Australia face many issues trying to ensure the gender status on their personal records matches the gender they live and how they are recognised by the community.  'These guidelines will bring about a practical improvement in the everyday lives of transgender, intersex and gender diverse people.'

SOURCE

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

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

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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Muslims must reject jihad

Pat Condell addresses British Muslims








Ministers refuse to mark Waterloo: Campaigners say Government do not want to celebrate 200th anniversary in case they offend France

It is often regarded as the British Army’s greatest military victory.  Led into battle by the Duke of Wellington, UK troops routed Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, a triumph ushering in almost a century of peace and stability in Europe.

But the Government is refusing to mark the battle’s 200th anniversary in 2015 amid suspicions it does not want to offend France.

That decision is in stark contrast to Belgium - where the clash took place. The government in Brussels is spending at least £20million on commemorative events, including restoring the battlefield.

Instead, there will only be ‘initiatives’ at military museums and ‘some commemorative activity’ at the Duke’s former homes.

The decision also contrasts with the major events organised to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007 which involved an apology on behalf of the nation by then prime minister Tony Blair.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has told the bicentenary campaign group Waterloo 200 that he will not help. The Government has also declined to hand over a single penny for any events.

James Morrow, secretary of Waterloo 200, which is organising commemorations including a service at St Paul’s and a re-enactment of the Waterloo Despatch, where British troops travelled with three captured French troops to London to tell the King of victory, said he was ‘disappointed’.  He said: ‘The Government has given us its blessing but it is difficult to know why they are not being overly supportive.  ‘They have encouraged us but they have not got behind us.

‘The Belgian government has spent millions on events to commemorate the battle but we have been given zilch, zippo, nothing. I think it’s very disappointing.

‘The Battle of Waterloo was a milestone in European history which ended over 20 years of conflict in Europe.  ‘We can’t let the 200th anniversary pass without marking it and learning lessons about why it was so important.’

Ian Fletcher, editor of the Waterloo Association’s journal, said: ‘When you look at some of the crazy ideas that the Government wastes money on, you would have thought they might have found some for the Waterloo commemorations.  It’s an appalling indictment of where their priorities lie.’

David Green, director of the Civitas think-tank, said: ‘This is very unsatisfactory, especially if the reason is not to insult the French or because celebrating the victory would be seen as bad or triumphalist.  ‘It appears to be ludicrous hyper-sensitivity.

‘Waterloo was a battle of the most immense importance. Britain was fighting a tyrant who had conquered Europe. It was a momentous moment that should be commemorated. We should be shouting it from the rooftops.’

In a message to Waterloo 200, the 8th Duke of Wellington said: ‘I am often asked whether we should not now, in these days of European unity, forget Waterloo and the battles of the past.
Napoleon Bonaparte, French Emperor, whose power was broken at Waterloo

‘My reply is, history cannot be forgotten and we need to be reminded of the bravery of the thousands of men from many nations who fought and died in a few hours and why their gallantry and sacrifice ensured peace in Europe for 50 years.’

Waterloo was fought a few miles south of Brussels on June 18, 2015.

Wellington described his own troops as ‘very weak and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced staff’.

Britain and its allies had 68,000 men, and were joined by about 45,000 Prussians on the evening of the battle. The French had 72,000 troops.

Heavy rain had turned the battlefield into a swamp. The scale of casualties was staggering - around one in four men were killed.

But the victory brought about the final destruction of Napoleon’s army and the end of his bloody reign as dictator.

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People worried about immigration and EU are not 'Little Englanders'

David Cameron today attacked Labour for dismissing people worried about immigration and the over-bearing power of Brussels as 'Little Englanders'.

The Prime Minister used a major speech on Britain's place in the world to condemn the other 'wrongheaded approach' of people who embrace globalisation 'so enthusiastically that they lose sight of the national interest'.

He said: 'We’re familiar with their frankly patronising approach to those who may disagree.   '"You’re a Little Englander" they say. "You don’t get the modern world".

'This approach – largely pursued under the last Government – didn’t feel too good for ordinary people – and frankly it didn’t do too much for our competitiveness either.

'We saw mass, uncontrolled immigration changing communities in a way people didn’t feel comfortable with, putting huge pressure on public services.

'We saw large bureaucracies like the EU having a huge impact on our way of life in a way no one voted for, while at the same time burdening our businesses with red tape and regulation.

'We saw, fundamentally, a political class too easily seduced by the rewards of globalisation – and not alert enough to the risks.'

However, Mr Cameron also insisted that remaining part of the European Union is vital to Britain being able to compete in the world.

He vowed to take on people who adopt a 'stop the world, I want to get off' approach and ignore the threat posed by 'leaner, fitter countries'.

He claimed opponents to reforms of the ‘bloated welfare system’ and underperforming state schools are 'in denial'.

The Prime Minister lay out three key goals - creating a world-class education system, reforming benefits and rebalancing the debt-fuelled economy - which he described as ‘national weaknesses’.

In a bullish speech ahead of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland next week, he revealed ‘ruthless’ plans to ‘turn our country around and give all our people the best chance of success’.

Taking on welfare spending, after a week in which the Labour party finally committed to caps on benefits, and economists predicted that austerity could last another decade, he said: ‘We have identified, very clearly, our key areas of national weakness compared to the rest of the world.

‘One – our debt-fuelled, unbalanced economy. Two – our bloated welfare system. Three – our under-performing education system.

‘These are the priorities that define and drive our domestic agenda. A stronger economy. Welfare that works. A world-class education system. And we are pursuing them with ruthless ambition for everyone in this country.’

He attacked Labour’s record on education, and say a ‘sense of opportunity’ has been lacking for too long for children in the worst performing schools.

Britain’s national interests are a battle ‘on two fronts’, with the need to both competing at home and stand up for British values abroad, and every government department will be focused on the global race, he said.

He also set a goal to make Britain one of the top five places in the world to do business and the number one country to do business in Europe in the next three years.

'When your prosperity is won in far-flung places, when your fortunes are disproportionately affected by what happens beyond your borders then your national interest is not just about standing up for yourself – but standing up for what’s right, and standing for something more.

‘At the UN. The Commonwealth. NATO. The WTO. The G8. The G20. And yes – the EU. Membership of these organisations is not national vanity – it is in our national interest’, he said.

‘The fact is that it is in international institutions that many of the rules of the game are set on trade, tax and regulation. When a country like ours is affected profoundly by those rules, I want us to have a say on them.

‘That doesn’t mean supinely going with the flow…far from it. At the European Union we are prepared to stand up for Britain’s interests with resolve and tenacity.

'In Europe, actions speak louder than words. This is about boldly pursuing our interests - not by withdrawing from the world but engaging with it.’

Mr Cameron boasted of how he secured a cut in the EU's seven-year budget, removing Britain from the Eurozone bailout mechanism and vetoing an EU Treaty.

But Mr Cameron argued a single market of 500million people in Europe would be a ‘huge advantage in this world’ if it worked properly and was not bureaucratic.

He added: ‘The EU is a way off that goal yet’ which is why he is seeking to negotiate a new membership deal for Britain and put it to a referendum.

He highlighted investment in apprenticeships which are equivalent of a degree, and ‘re-writing the benefits system so that work actually pays.’

He went on: ‘I have a very clear vision of the country we are building. It’s one where there is a sense of opportunity that was lacking for too long.

'Where children in all our schools – in the roughest areas, the places that were once written off are encouraged to dream, inspired to learn and feel good about where they’re going.

‘Where those who want to work hard can get a good job, with prospects and a decent wage each month - enough for a home to raise their family in, enough to feel that things are getting better.

'As a parent what you want more than anything is to be able to look at your children and know they will grow up and be able to fulfil what they were born to be.

‘We tell them that if they try, they can make something of their lives. That is what we teach our children. And we need to build that country for them. Where everyone who works hard can get on. Where effort is rewarded. Where we pull together to make life better.’

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Diversity at work



An image has emerged showing a Wendy’s server filling his mouth with ice cream directly from the nozzle of a Frosty machine.

The photo is just the latest in a series of unpleasant images to go viral showing fast food employees doing things that their employers wouldn't approve off.

The only certainty with this PR disaster is when the fast food chain catches the culprit he will undoubtedly get sacked for doing untold damage to the chain’s brand.

The photograph surfaced on Reddit on Wednesday along with the words: ‘I was going to buy a frosty from Wendy's until I saw the employee do this’.

The photograph appears to have been taken behind the counter which suggests that the person taking it was also an employee.

SOURCE

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

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

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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France: Man attacked by two Muslims because he was eating a ham sandwich

A few years ago, Muslim cabbies at the Minneapolis airport began to refuse to carry passengers who were carrying alcohol. It became a big controversy, as some counter-jihad activists began asking whether the cab drivers would soon begin enforcing other Sharia rules upon their non-Muslim customers. Would they, for example, refuse to carry a passenger who had a ham sandwich?

Such concerns were dismissed at the time as hysterical exaggerations of what was presented as a completely innocuous attempt by the cab drivers to exercise their religious freedom.

But now, with this incident, we see the next step that we predicted all those years ago: the violent enforcement of Sharia provisions on non-Muslims -- in what still is, for the moment, a non-Muslim country.

It sounds incredible but it is being treated with great seriousness by the police in Reims police station (Marne). A 23-year-old man filed a complaint on the 8th of June after having been attacked the previous evening at 9.30 pm in a city tramway by two strangers. They struck him several times on the face because he was eating a ham sandwich.

The two attackers, who claimed to be Muslims, said they were offended by this consumption of pork in front of their eyes before attacking the young man.

A witness, a friend of the young man who was present when the incident occurred, has been interviewed by the investigators and has confirmed the reality of the attack. The two attackers, who fled, have not yet been found. The CCTV tapes in the tramway are currently being examined.

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France:  Uneven outrage

In March of last year, when a Jewish teacher and three students were gunned down in Toulouse, the international left smugly and giddily j’accused “French neo-Nazis” of carrying out the dirty deed.

“One could be forgiven for concluding that Meric and his pals went to that Fred Perry sale looking for a fight and got one, with tragic consequences.”

Until a few days later that is, when the killer turned out to be a Muslim, and then suddenly (as the kids say these days) not a f*ck was given.

Maybe it’s just me, but few things scream “Holy crap! The Nazis are coming!” quite like reports of Jewish kids being randomly executed in broad daylight in and around the general vicinity of Europe.

But then again, I’m not a super-duper sophisticated French leftist, none of whom took to their (tree-lined) streets to condemn that crime or any other recent outbreaks of anti-Semitism in their country. (OK, stop laughing….)

Smash cut to June 7, 2013. Across France, a reported 15,000 or so protesters assembled to condemn the death of 18-year-old “left-wing activist” and Anti-Fascist Action member Clement Meric, who “died after being attacked by skinheads.”

In good ol’ Toulouse, we’re told, “demonstrators”—apparently all born without the irony gene—“held banners that read ‘As some protest, others kill.’”

And note that only “some” are allowed to “protest”: The city’s mayor rushed to ban “fascists” from holding a previously planned rally to commemorate the Christian victory over Muslim invaders in the 721 Battle of Toulouse.

Not to be outdone, the French prime minister himself has ordered the “dissolution” of a “fringe far-right” youth group that may or may not have had something to do with Meric’s death.

(The French government can apparently “dissolve” groups it doesn’t approve of, and yes, that does sound kind of, well, fascist of them.)

Now, as to the death of Meric itself, what happened exactly?

No one with even passing familiarity with the Official (Leftist) Version of History—from Sacco and Vanzetti and the Rosenbergs to Tawana Brawley and Trayvon Martin—will be surprised to learn that the victim in this case may not have been entirely blameless.

Anyway, even the reliably left-leaning Reuters reports (albeit eight paragraphs in) that “Meric’s head injuries came when he fell against a metal post after being punched by tattooed Right-wing youths he had been taunting in a typical clash between the two camps.”

This “typical clash” occurred outside “a Fred Perry private sale.” We’re further informed that Meric and his three friends “started mocking the skinheads’ [sic] over their outfit [sic].”

For those unschooled in the finer points of postwar teenage subcultural anthropology, note that preppy, Lacoste-like “Fred Perry” apparel has long been treasured by, first mods, then skinheads (of various political stripes or none at all.)

They are decidedly not the clothing of choice among those on the “no-logo” left.

In other words, one could be forgiven for concluding that Meric and his pals went to that Fred Perry sale looking for a fight and got one, with tragic consequences.

SOURCE





University of Chicago Removes Pews from 88 Year-Old Chapel to Accommodate Muslim Prayers

University of Chicago (UC) administrators permanently removed pews from an 88-year old chapel on campus in order to accommodate Islamic prayers, according to a local news report.

Chicago NPR affiliate, WBEZ news, reported on May 23, the pews, which are now part of display at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago, were “removed in order to provide Muslim students a place to pray.”

Literature describing the artwork that was created by UC Director of Arts and Public Life Theaster Gates, also describes the removal of the pews as symbol of religious tolerance.

“The pews were recently removed from the chapel in order to offer Muslim students a place to pray, a symbolic gesture of religious tolerance,” according to an official description of the exhibit which includes a “set of repurposed pews from the University of Chicago’s campus church.”

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IRS Caught on Tape Telling Nonprofit: “Keep Your Faith to Yourself”

The IRS scandal is deepening as a new tape has been released today showing a disturbing phone call the Internal Revenue Service placed to a non-profit organization.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a pro-life legal group, made the audio available today of IRS officials telling a group that provides support to women in abusive pregnancy situations to keep its faith to itself. In the recorded phone conversation, an IRS agent lectures the president of the organization about forcing its religion and beliefs on others and inaccurately explains that the group must remain neutral on issues such as abortion.

ADF is providing legal representation for the group — which did not receive its tax-exempt status until last week after waiting nearly two and a half years after applying for it.

“The IRS is a tax collector; it shouldn’t be allowed to be the speech and belief police,” said Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “The current scandal isn’t new but has merely exposed the abuse of power that characterizes this agency and threatens our fundamental freedoms.”

ADF tells LifeNews that, in January 2011, Pro-Life Revolution, which operates from Texas under all three purposes for whcih religious groups can obtain nonprofit status, filed an application for tax-exempt status with the IRS. Four months later, the IRS sent a letter requesting “more information” and an explanation of how the organization’s activities are educational or charitable even though IRS rules specify that an organization need only operate for “one or more” of the three exempt purposes. President of Pro-Life Revolution Ania Joseph nonetheless replied and answered the IRS’s questions.

ADF indicates Joseph received a call from IRS Exempt Organization Specialist Sherry Wan in March 2012.

Wan told her that, in order to obtain a tax exemption, “You cannot force your religion or force your beliefs on somebody else…. You have to know your boundaries. You have to know your limits. You have to respect other people’s beliefs.”

In February of this year, the IRS requested additional information in another letter and attempted to apply a standard for tax exemption to Pro-Life Revolution that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held to be unconstitutional in 1980. Alliance Defending Freedom pointed this out in a letter responding to the IRS, which finally granted tax-exempt status to the organization in a letter received Thursday.

“The power to tax is the power to destroy,” added Stanley. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We cannot allow the IRS to ruthlessly dictate against legitimate non-profits simply because it does not approve of the organization’s mission. It must be held accountable.”

“The IRS has approved applications for tax exemption for pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood and Life and Liberty for Women,” ADF said.

SOURCE

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

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

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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