Monday, February 28, 2005

 

OK TO DRINK TEA BUT A HEALTH HAZARD TO RECYCLE THE TEABAG!

IT'S humble, inoffensive, excellent for plants and eminently biodegradable. But householders in Cardiff, having drunk deep of the recycyling message, have been ordered to keep their used teabags well away from the city council's compost collections. An EU directive of the straight banana variety has obliged officials in the city of Cardiff to classify the teabag, a simple assembly of paper and dried leaves, as an animal by-product, and therefore the potential source of a future foot-and-mouth outbreak. The reason, according to the EU's Animal By-Products Order 1999, is that teabags, and indeed used coffee filters, could have come in contact with contaminated milk.

Cardiff has been running composting collections alongside the normal dustbin round for more than a year, and the scheme has proved popular. The city's problem is that the council does not possess a high-temperature composting plant, which the EU directive requires to ensure that any undesirable organisms are killed off. Indeed, there is no such plant anywhere in Wales. The city is contemplating upgrading its composting plant, but it could take several years and in the meantime officials are telling residents that it can no longer collect household waste for processing into garden compost which can then be sold back to residents. A council spokesman said: "This affects every single authority in Wales. We have to uphold the law, and we have been informing residents that by law we cannot compost kitchen waste."

Cardiff has the backing of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, where a spokeswoman said: "Home composting is no problem, but when it comes to commercial or municipal composting, because you can't guarantee the teabag hasn't come into contact with an animal product, namely milk, you can't technically put it in. It needs to be treated as a by-product."

The problem is potentially enormous. The Tea Council, a stickler for statistics, has calculated Britons consume 57.2 billion teabags each year. And of the 156 million cups of teabag tea drunk every day, 98 per cent of them are taken with milk. Put another way, approximately half of all the milk consumed in Britain goes into tea.

Source



SALT WARRIORS

Taking the salt out of food won't do any good unless you take people's salt-shakers away too. And the CSPI is a far-Left lobby group which masquerades as a "consumer group". Like all Leftist groups, its aim is to dictate to other people.

A consumer group sued the federal government Thursday, saying that salt is killing tens of thousands of Americans and that regulators have done too little to control salt in food. Despite advisories to take it easy on sodium, Americans are now consuming about 4,000 milligrams a day -- nearly double the recommended limit to keep blood pressure under control, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said.

So the CSPI renewed a lawsuit first filed in 1983 to ask federal courts to force the Food and Drug Administration to declare sodium a food additive instead of categorizing it as "generally recognized as safe." This would give the agency the authority to set limits for salt in foods. "There is no way the FDA can look at the science and say with a straight face that salt is 'generally recognized as safe,"' CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson said in a statement. "In fact, salt is generally recognized as unsafe, because it is a major cause of heart attacks and stroke. The federal government should require food manufacturers to gradually lower their sodium levels."

The CSPI said Americans get most of their salt in processed and restaurant foods. In 1983 the FDA had just begun requiring labels describing sodium content on some packaged foods so the court decided to wait and see how it worked. The new lawsuit, filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, contends that it has not worked well because salt content in foods is higher than ever. "FDA is currently evaluating CSPI's report on salt, including the recommendations it contains," Kathleen Quinn, a spokeswoman for the agency, said.

The government says Americans should try to keep sodium to about 2,300 milligrams a day. "This is about 1 teaspoon," the American Heart Association says.

Salt is not found only in the salt shaker. For example, a teaspoon of baking soda contains 1,000 mg of sodium.

Patients with high blood pressure and others at high risk are told to eat even less salt -- 1,500 mg a day. "Nevertheless, sodium intake has increased steadily since the 1970s," the CSPI said in a statement. "The medical community has reached a consensus that diets high in sodium are a major cause of high blood pressure as well as pre-hypertension, or blood pressure just short of high blood pressure," said Dr. Stephen Havas of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "Today roughly 65 million Americans have high blood pressure and another 45 million have pre-hypertension."

The CSPI issued a report saying that processed foods and restaurant fare contribute almost 80 percent of sodium to the U.S. diet. Frozen dinners are especially high in salt, the report finds. Depending on the brand, some salad dressings contain nearly a quarter of the day's allowance of sodium while others are low in sodium, the report finds. One chain restaurant's breakfast contains two days' worth of sodium -- 4,460 mg -- the CSPI report said. Chinese restaurant meals can be especially, high too. "A typical order of General Tso's chicken with rice has 3,150 mg," the group said.

Dr. Claude Lenfant, president of the World Hypertension League and a former head of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute supported the report. "If we could reduce the sodium in processed and restaurant foods by half, we could save about 150,000 lives per year," he said.

Source



A HARVARD PROFESSOR CONDEMNS THE FEMINIST ASSAULT ON SUMMERS

At last week's Harvard faculty meeting, President Larry Summers saved his job, but he took a pummeling from his angry critics. Summers is easily the most outstanding of the major university presidents now on the scene--the most intelligent, the most energetic, as well as the most prominent. So, alarmed at his abilities and intentions, the Harvard faculty decided it would be a good idea to humiliate him......

Summers saved his job by skating backwards, listening to his critics without demur and occasionally accepting their harsh words by saying he agreed with them. At no point did he feel able to say yes, but . . . in order to introduce a point of his own in response. His accusers were relentless and, as always with feminists, humorless. They complained of being humiliated, but they took no care not to humiliate a proud man. They complained too of being intimidated, but they were doing their best to intimidate Summers--and they succeeded.....

More than most people--to say nothing of university presidents--Summers lives by straightforward argument. He doesn't care whether he convinces you or you convince him. He isn't looking for victory in argument. But his forceful intelligence often produces it, in the view of those with whom he reasons. Sometimes the professors he speaks with come out feeling that they are victims of "bullying," as one of his feminist critics stated. As if to reason were to bully.

One faculty colleague said in response to this, "Can anybody on earth have less reason to fear than a tenured Harvard professor?" True enough, a Harvard professor has both the prominence to awe and, if that doesn't work, the security to escape. But feminists do not think like this. They insist on a welcoming atmosphere of encouragement to themselves and to their plans. If they do not get it, they will with a straight face accuse you of intimidating them even as they are intimidating you.

It takes one's breath away to watch feminist women at work. At the same time that they denounce traditional stereotypes they conform to them. If at the back of your sexist mind you think that women are emotional, you listen agape as professor Nancy Hopkins of MIT comes out with the threat that she will be sick if she has to hear too much of what she doesn't agree with. If you think women are suggestible, you hear it said that the mere suggestion of an innate inequality in women will keep them from stirring themselves to excel. While denouncing the feminine mystique, feminists behave as if they were devoted to it. They are women who assert their independence but still depend on men to keep women secure and comfortable while admiring their independence. Even in the gender-neutral society, men are expected by feminists to open doors for women. If men do not, they are intimidating women.

Thus the issue of Summers's supposedly intimidating style of governance is really the issue of the political correctness by which Summers has been intimidated. Political correctness is the leading form of intimidation in all of American education today, and this incident at Harvard is a pure case of it. The phrase has been around since the 1980s, and the media have become bored with it. But the fact of political correctness is before us in the refusal of feminist women professors even to consider the possibility that women might be at any natural disadvantage in mathematics as compared with men. No, more than that: They refuse to allow that possibility to be entertained even in a private meeting. And still more: They are not ashamed to be seen as suppressing any inquiry into such a possibility. For the demand that Summers be more "responsible" in what he says applies to any inquiry that he or anyone else might cite.

More here



THE CLOSED MIND OF ACADEME: THINGS NOT SAYABLE AT HARVARD

Another comment on the Summers affair (excerpt):

"Summers did not contend that one gender is smarter. He postulated the two genders as intellectually different. Is that no longer sayable in the groves of academe? Does the inquiring mind now find itself fenced out? An avalanche of data points in the direction of differentness; anyone with his (or her) eyes open knows it -- and vive la diff‚rence!

Is it sexist even to suggest complementary gray matter on the part of the genders? Can the data not even be discussed for fear of what feminist termagants might say in the faculty lounges? If men and women differ in, say, upper-body strength, might they not differ in their brains as well? If genetic predisposition to the arts and humanities (women) and to math and the hard sciences (men) is such a misguided proposition it is not even discussable, then what of debates about affectional preference vs. genetic predisposition among some toward homosexual behaviors?

If we all are equal in rights, are both genders and all races equal in abilities as well? Do we move, now, to the insertion of equal numbers of women as men on the front lines -- and to the elimination of gender-specific sports?

What of the field of behavioral genetics? Are the great debates -- nature vs. nurture, biology vs. society -- now over, with nurture and society declared the victors? Is there no "intrinsic aptitude"? Do innate differences not exist?"

More here

posted by jonjayray 08:36

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Sunday, February 27, 2005

 

THE FLAG OF ENGLAND'S PATRON SAINT NOW INCORRECT IN ENGLAND

But the Palestinian flag is OK, of course

ST GEORGE'S flag won't be seen flying over the civic centre on his feast day this year - because councillors believe it's too socially divisive. Over the years Hounslow council has flown the Palestinian flag, the Co-operative flag on International Co-operators' Day, the Union Flag on the Queen's Jubilee and on Armistice Day and the Welsh Flag on the request of a local resident - but the English flag of St George is too controversial apparently. Cllr Peta Vaught, (Lab, Heston Central) put a motion to the ruling Labour Group's last meeting to raise the flag over the civic centre on St George's Day (April 23) along with articles in the council's HM magazine and events for local schools. However, her fellow councillors defeated the motion - with only one other Cllr Gopal Dhillon, also Heston Central voting for it.

Cllr Vaught said she had put the motion forward as there "hasn't been a celebration before to my knowledge", adding that her fellow councillors thought raising the flag could be "divisive", and would stir tensions with the BNP: "I haven't had any trouble with the BNP - I have heard they are active in Feltham, and some councillors thought it would be divisive there, by excluding the 30 per cent that aren't English. "I understand their reasoning." Others were less understanding.

Cllr John Connelly, a former Labour group leader turned Independent, said: "It is a decision of donkeys. Given that the council celebrates Diwali with fireworks and other ethnic minority festivals, I suspect many residents will be highly offended by what appears to be a snub to the indigenous community. "Even a Scot like myself, who regarded Beckham as the hero of the European Championships in Portugal following his penalty miss, could not fail to notice that the community at large embraced the flag in the support of England. "Indeed in Hounslow I suspect I saw as many residents of Asian origin displaying the flag on their cars as I saw in cars driven by white drivers. I imagine Tony Blair and his associates will be deeply embarrassed by this decision."

Source



GREAT LITERATURE TO BE ABANDONED IN BRITISH SCHOOLS

Some of the most revered names in literature, including Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, face possible removal from the official pantheon of great writers in a modernisation of English in the national curriculum. In their place, children may be required to study a greater range of modern writers and those who reflect the ethnically diverse nature of modern Britain such as the prize-winning black author Andrea Levy.

Other potential candidates for the new list include fantasy writers Tolkien and Philip Pullman, who many believe more closely reflect the reading tastes of children than the current list. Pullman, author of His Dark Materials, will be present this Wednesday when the government's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) launches a consultation on reform of the English curriculum. He will be accompanied by Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, and Lord Bragg, the writer and broadcaster.

Critics are likely to attack any attempt to cut writers seen as part of the canon of literature, but others believe the system leaves little room for teachers to choose books reflecting their pupils' tastes and ability. Some believe the list should be abolished altogether with the possible exception of Shakespeare. A more widespread view is that the list should be modernised and the number of authors cut, enabling books to be studied in greater depth. "There's too much prescription of what to read," said Pullman. "The government doesn't seem to trust teachers. I'm also annoyed that chunks of books are now studied too much and not the whole book itself."

Bragg agreed. "I'm not really one for lists of authors though I would argue that Shakespeare must be on," he said. "What's more important is that youngsters are encouraged to read as many good books as possible. That might help to encourage reading for life and not just the schoolroom."

The current English curriculum was introduced by Baroness Thatcher's government in 1989, although it was modified in the mid-1990s. Currently one Shakespeare play must be studied by 11 to 14-year-olds, and one more by those on their two-year GCSE course. Other plays must be studied from a list of 10 playwrights. They range from William Congreve, who wrote in the 17th and 18th centuries, to 19th and 20th-century authors such as Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and JB Priestley. Four out of 28 listed pre- 1914 poets and two out of 19 novelists from before that year must be studied. From the years after 1914, four out of a list of 16 poets and two out of 11 novelists must be studied. Together, these lists constitute the officially approved roster of great writers in English literature. The novelists range from Defoe, Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters to Charles Dickens, Jonathan Swift, Graham Greene and George Orwell.

According to sources close to the review, the poets' list could be vulnerable, particularly names such as Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Elizabethan love poet, Keith Douglas, who wrote of his experiences fighting in the second world war, and Gillian Clarke, the contemporary Welsh poet. Some question whether John Milton, a difficult poet to read, should remain on the list. His fellow 17th-century poets Robert Herrick and Henry Vaughan may be candidates for removal. Congreve could also go.

Source



TWO GOOD EMAILS RECENTLY RECEIVED:

"My younger sister was in kindergarten at the time, and my mother recieved a phone call at work: "Hello?"... "Hello! Is this Mrs. K______?".... "Yes it is.".... "Hello, my name is __________ from State Road Elementary School. I wanted to inform you that your child, Christina, needs to be placed into therapy immediately.".... My mother was beginning to become worried. "Why?!?"..... "Ma'am, your daughter needs to be put into therapy because she refuses to finger paint. You must understand this is not normal behavior for a 5 year-old child.".... My mother's jaw dropped. "You want to put her in therapy because she refuses to finger paint?!? That's not strange. She doesn't like to get her fingers dirty. None of my kids liked to get their fingers dirty. I don't like to get my fingers dirty. I think you're the one who needs therapy!""


"I wonder if any of the German Greens condemning the Pope for equating abortion to the Holocaust have heard of abortion pioneer Margaret Sanger and her connections to the eugenics movement? -- which won her warm praise from Hitler himself! Thanks to a skillful PR makeover the old eugenicists dream to limit the breeding of the lower "criminal" classes has now been sold as a women's right. Their agenda here has now largely been achieved. There is a further layer of irony here too, of course. The most ardent advocates of women's right to control their own bodies, have not the slightest regard for individual rights or other forms of self government in non-reproductive matters."



DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

British Labour Party very "judgmental" and not at all "tolerant": "A woman fighting to become an MP has been dropped by the Labour Party after she admitted that she was a former prostitute. Christine Wheatley stunned officials when she confessed to working in Paris as a "tart" for Fr20 a time. She had been shortlisted for the Copeland seat in Cumbria. Last night the Labour Party defended its decision to scratch her name from the candidacy on the ground that she had failed to inform officials of her six-week career on the streets. A senior official said that when Ms Wheatley was asked whether she had any skeletons in the cupboard she neglected to mention that she was once a member of the oldest profession. "She clearly does not regard this as a skeleton," he said. Ms Wheatley shared that view and remained defiant yesterday. She was not ashamed, she said. In fact, she was more ashamed that she had once been an encyclopaedia saleswoman in Germany"

posted by jonjayray 09:31

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Saturday, February 26, 2005

 

CURING CRIMINALS SOUNDS GOOD BUT HAS ALWAYS BEEN A FANTASY

And with hundreds of years of experience to draw on, the current British Left has not managed it either

Multi-million pound schemes introduced by Labour to get convicted drug addicts and yobs off crime are failing, according to an independent think-tank. More than 80 per cent of criminals re-offend despite £45 million being spent on the schemes, a report from Civitas says. It says Britain's law and order policies are among the least effective in Europe, with a crime rate of almost one crime per 10 people giving it the fourth highest rate out of 39 countries. It uses Council of Europe figures to show that England and Wales had 9,817 offences per 100,000 of population - more than double the 4,333 average across the continent.

It adds that the Home Office's own research had concluded a number of the Government's crime-fighting schemes were not reducing crime. For example, Offending Behaviour Programmes, such as anger management courses costing £2,000 each, had not reduced crime. The ministry has also admitted that 84 per cent of criminals placed on Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programmes - which have cost at least £45 million since 2001 - were reconvicted within 12 months of starting. Labour's Drug Treatment and Testing Orders also failed to work, it said, with 70 per cent of addicts failing to complete them and 80 per cent reconvicted within two years.

Civitas also highlighted Tony Blair's tendency to "opt for the clever use of words" - such as his election slogan "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" - rather than confront real problems. "Despite the blunt rhetoric of the Blunkett era, the dominant influence at every stage has remained a utopian dislike of prison, a naive view about how hardened offenders can be rehabilitated and an underlying lack of respect for the mass of people," the report says

It also said the Government was benefiting from falling figures from an artificially high peak in the mid-1990s and called for more prisons to be built. The current justice system is too soft on persistent juvenile offenders, who should be sent to secure institutions for a "significant period" after committing three indictable offences, it added.

Source



DISCRIMINATION AGAINST AFRICANS FROM AFRICA ON THE WAY?

When educators and politicians argue for giving more African Americans the chance to thrive at top universities, they see people like UC Berkeley fourth-year student Obi Amajoyi as a perfect example of what they have in mind. He's a biology major who has emerged as a peer leader and athlete. He recruits high school students and is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. But while Amajoyi was born in the United States, his parents are from Africa. He considers himself both African American and Nigerian. "I definitely identify with all the struggles that we as African Americans have had to go through," said Amajoyi, 21. "But at the same time, I have this (other) history from my parents."

But Amajoyi is not a direct descendant of American slaves. And critics say his presence at the university -- and that of other black immigrants and their children -- shows institutions have failed to reach those who were the original targets of diversity outreach efforts. Affirmative action programs were started in the wake of the 1960s civil rights movement to help African Americans overcome the legacy of slavery and decades of Jim Crow discrimination in employment, education and other fields.

In 1998, the passage of Proposition 209 ended the programs in California and led to -- what many activists say -- a steady decline in African American enrollment. Critics say that the rising number of black immigrants and their children, such as Amajoyi, at the universities has further decreased outreach efforts to African Americans and have raised concerns that American- born blacks will again be left behind.

But outgoing UC Regent Ward Connerly says the debate only shows how affirmative action has always failed to help those blacks most in need. "Over the years, preference programs, affirmative action programs, have really not benefited low-income blacks, those who were the descendants of slaves," said Connerly. "They have benefited middle- and upper-income blacks. "Recent immigrants are the beneficiaries of this terribly flawed program, " said Connerly. "The institutions don't care about that -- all they care about is chalking up the numbers." Connerly says schools run the risk of sowing division between immigrants and African Americans. But he doubts UC officials will do anything to address the issue. "To a large extent, this has flown beneath the radar," said Connerly. "We (regents) have not discussed it, and I don't think we will."

Nathan Hare, who fought to establish the first ethnic studies program in the United States at San Francisco State University in 1968 and is co-founder of the Black Think Tank in San Francisco, blames these numbers on old stereotypes. "I have nothing against immigrants, but there are sociological realities we have to look at," said Hare. "They don't have the stereotypes of them being lazy and so on." Hare says black immigrants often arrive with higher levels of education and are more willing to take low-level jobs, which can affect how quickly they move up in society. "We'd have a much harder time doing that -- we're supposed to have been past that," said Hare. "We are the ex-slaves and inhabitants of the slums. They (immigrants) are coming in without that (baggage)." .......

Researchers at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania who have been studying the achievement of minority students at 28 selective colleges and universities (including Berkeley, Columbia, Yale and Duke) last year found that 41 percent of the black students identified themselves as immigrants, children of immigrants or mixed race.

In December, 300 black students at Berkeley staged a "blackout" day to protest the school's lack of diversity, wearing all-black outfits and bandanas over their mouths. Last fall, there were 108 African American freshmen enrolled at Berkeley out of more than 3,600 freshman students. ......

On a recent day, Amajoyi and some other students gathered on UC Berkeley's campus to discuss the challenges they face at the elite institution. "I'm not sure how deep the line between being from Africa or the Caribbean or being African American is," said Amajoyi, who was born in Texas and grew up in Southern California. "Because our numbers are so low, just being black on campus brings you together. The first thing is you're black." Amajoyi's parents both came to the United States on student visas and attended Texas A&M University.

Branden Turner, 20, a third-year biology major from Los Angeles, recalled taking an African American studies class taught by a professor from the Caribbean. His teacher's background was the topic of discussion on the first day of class. "His point was that even though he came to America, once you walk onto American soil, you deal with the black struggle," said Turner. "I'm perceived (by classmates) as not being as intelligent as the others in my class." ......

Harvard law Professor Lani Guinier has voiced concerns that many of Harvard's black undergraduate students are West Indian and African immigrants or their children.

More here

posted by jonjayray 04:03

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Friday, February 25, 2005

 

POPE INCORRECT

The Pope’s new book stirred controversy in Germany as Jewish groups condemned passages in which he draws parallels between abortion and the Holocaust. Paul Spiegel, the president of the Central Council for Jews in Germany, said yesterday that “the Catholic Church does not understand, or does not want to understand, that there is an enormous difference between mass genocide and what women do with their bodies”.

The Vatican rushed to the Pope’s defence, saying that he had been misinterpreted. But the German Greens, who are part of the ruling coalition, said that they were taking court action to ban Memory and Identity, an autobiographical summation of the 84-year-old pontiff’s life.

German law forbids any “offence to the memory of Holocaust victims”. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that in the offending passage the Pope had discussed the failings of parliamentary democracy and sought to make clear that “a course of action is not necessarily right because the majority have chosen to take it”.

The Pope observes that Hitler rose to power by democratic means and yet proceeded to exterminate millions of Jews. He adds that it follows that parliamentary majorities do not always make “morally just” decisions. “The example which springs to mind is abortion,” he says. “Whoever interrupts a pregnancy commits a grave act of tyranny against an innocent human being.”

Source



The British Inquisition

This afternoon, I attended a meeting called by organisations supporting the government's proposed new law against incitement to religious hatred, which I believe threatens to suppress legitimate debate and criminalise people for simply telling the truth. Lined up in support of this bill were the Commission for Racial Equality, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), Justice, the British Humanist Association and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). Interestingly, they were very much on the defensive, as they felt that the attack on the bill, mounted by the comedian Rowan Atkinson and many others on the grounds that it would criminalise legitimate speech, had already done serious damage to the government's case.

Their arguments ranged from the confused to the disingenuous to the alarming. Confused, because even they couldn't agree with each other about what the bill meant or how it would work. Disingenuous, because they argued that the only reason people feared that the bill would criminalise insult and the giving of offence was because the blasphemy law -- which only protects Christians -- was still on the statute book.

Not only was this a non sequitur,but it ignored the real reasons why people have this anxiety -- some of which were promptly illustrated by some alarming comments that were made. For example, Robert Beckley, the ACPO faith officer, related how he had once wanted to launch a prosecution against people who had argued that Hindus and Muslims in Britain would enact a re-run of the violent Ayodhya dispute in northern India, but had been told he could not do so because the issue was religious rather than race hatred (which is covered by the present law). So now we know what kind of remark the police think they will now be able to prosecute on the grounds that it incites religious hatred.

Then I asked Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the MCB,whether he thought that any public statements about Islamic terrorism, or any speculation about the number of Muslims in Britain who might support Islamic terrorism, would constitute incitement to religious hatred. He said: 'There is no such thing as an Islamic terrorist. This is deeply offensive. Saying Muslims are terrorists would be covered by this provision'. So now we know what the MCB wants to prosecute under this proposed new law.

There was much emphasis that the aim was not to bring prosecutions. The aim was to change the climate and prevent such sentiments from being uttered in the first place. The result will undoubtedly be intimidation, self-censorship and grossly curtailed public debate. If this bill's supporters think they have allayed anxiety about this measure, they must be living on a different planet.

Source

posted by jonjayray 09:20

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Thursday, February 24, 2005

 

FREE MARKET BEATS THE FOOD FASCISTS

Which could well be the most valuable lesson of their school years

"When Austin High School administrators removed candy from campus vending machines last year, the move was hailed as a step toward fighting obesity," reports the Austin American-Statesman. Instead, the enterprising students created a black market in sweets:

The candy removal plan, according to students at Austin High, was thwarted by classmates who created an underground candy market, turning the hallways of the high school into Willy-Wonka-meets-Casablanca. Soon after candy was removed from vending machines, enterprising students armed with gym bags full of M&M's, Skittles, Snickers and Twix became roving vendors, serving classmates in need of an in-school sugar fix. Regular-size candy bars like the ones sold in vending machines routinely sold in the halls for $1.50. "There was no sugar in the vending machines, so (student vendors) could make a lot of money," said Hayden Starkey, an Austin High junior who said he was not one of the candy sellers. "I heard kids were making $200 a week just selling candy."

In response, the school has restored some candy to the vending machines by declaring it nutritious: "According to the state, milk chocolate, for example, meets minimal nutritional standards because it does have milk in it. Candy with peanuts contains protein. The vending machines still don't carry Starburst, Skittles and other so-called pure sugar products."

From Taranto



NICE NAMES FOR TERRORISTS

If you've been thinking that we have finally defeated the diabolical illness of political correctness that has been plaguing our society for far too long, you better think again! What do you call people who blow up police stations, ambulance services, restaurants, hospitals, schools, water and electric services, behead social workers who feed their hungry and provide medical attention to their sick, murder men who are there to rebuild their schools and teachers who give their children hope for the first time, Muslims who blow up Muslims, even on the holiest day in the Muslim faith, at the mosques no less? .Insurgents? Hardly!

I call them brutal terrorists! Thugs willing to drug some young idiot wannabe Jihadist, tape a bomb to his chest, tell him he's a martyr, on his way to meet Allah and 77 virgins, point him to a group of innocent people outside a mosque, clawing their way towards the first freedom and peace they have ever known.. Filth, Scum, Neanderthals, Dirt Bags, Murderers, Wimps, Criminals, Cowards, I can come up with a whole list of appropriate names for what these so-called people are, but insurgents won't make that list.

The men, who threw tea into the Boston harbor, now they were insurgents. The farmers, who sent the Red Coats packing, they were insurgents. The term "insurgents" implies that there is something noble in their deeds, something justifiable about their tactics, a valiant act of patriotic duty involved. In this case, nothing could be further from the truth.these freedom fighters are not fighting for freedom, quite the contrary. The term insurgent does not apply to these terrorists, so why do we use it? Because we don't like calling anything what it is these days.that's why. (Using the term "we" as loosely as the term "insurgent" of course.)

What do you call the taking of innocent life, not in self defense, without provocation of any kind, not in war? Some call it "a choice" or "abortion". But I looked it up in the dictionary and I like calling things by their rightful name, so I call it murder.

What do you call deposing the worlds most brutal dictator, responsible for the murder of millions of his own people and the vicious torture of millions more, who attacked, raped and plundered his neighbors on more than one occasion? Some call it a "preemptive invasion", but I call it "liberation" of those held under his boot by brutal force.

What do you call a vial of biological or chemical materials capable of killing thousands or millions of innocent people if left in the hands of those who intend just that? I call it a WMD.you call it what ever you want.

What do you call it when American soldiers risk their lives and the American people fork over their hard earned money to liberate, rebuild, re-train, re-arm, feed, clothe, treat, educate and democratize an entire nation that has lived in fear for 40 years? Many call it an "occupation". I call it a damn expensive humanitarian effort that actually has a chance of reshaping the future of the Middle East, which by the way is the only hope for making this world a safer place to live.

I could go on and on but you get the point, or if you don't, you never will. Insurgents my fat fanny! Most of these insurgents are not even from Iraq, yet most of the people they are killing are. When is the last time you saw insurgents attack their own people, their innocent fellow countrymen, women and children? Insurgents don't do these things, terrorists do.

Is the guy who blows up the abortion clinic an insurgent? How about those who mailed anthrax around the U.S.? What about Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, insurgents? The kids who shot up Columbine, insurgents too I suppose? All just helpless victims of the good old U.S.A., rebelling against authority right?

Wrong! All terrorists plain and simple. People (to use the term loosely) with no respect for human life, no tolerance for civilization, who desire a tyrannical control over others, terrorizing those unwilling to be controlled, hoping to break their will to be free. Real fear-mongers who hope we will shrink from our responsibility to put them in their well deserved early grave.

As for those of you who think they are insurgents, well, it's America, so you can think anything you want. Just don't expect the rest of us who know better, to follow you to slaughter. Call them whatever helps you sleep at night, but you better hope they never rebel in your neighborhood.

The problem with political correctness is, has always been and will always be the results. Calling something ill conceived or evil by a friendlier more acceptable name has a tendency to make the act itself seem more friendly and acceptable. Do we have compassion for terrorists? No. But insurgents? Sure. it almost sounds patriotic to be an insurgent, doesn't it?

Would we support a "pro-infant-murder" movement? No, so we call it "pro-choice" and by doing so, it makes a heinous act sound reasonable, worthy of defense.

Coalition forces went out of their way, taking additional casualties to avoid firing upon terrorists intentionally hiding in mosques. But these insurgents, alleged Muslim jihadists, they didn't think twice about attacking innocent civilians in those mosques did they?

That's because they are not insurgents rising up against some brutal tyrannical regime. They are just common terrorists attacking innocent Iraqi men, women and children. They have no respect for human life, their fellow countrymen or their religion.

So we need to stop kidding ourselves. We need to stop referring to common terrorists as insurgents. We need to stop calling their heinous acts by a nicer name, justifying their tactics and motives as if they demonstrate anything honorable. The use of the term insurgents in this case in not only inappropriate, it's an outright lie and it's dangerous.

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posted by jonjayray 08:32

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Wednesday, February 23, 2005

 

UNHEALTHY FENCE? THE FAR-LEFT BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL IS AT IT AGAIN

They don't recommend that the Palestinian Arabs stop the building of the wall by stopping their attacks!

Almost a third of West Bank Palestinian villages will be denied free and open access to healthcare facilities once the Israeli government has completed constructing the West Bank barrier, says a report by the French non-governmental organisation M‚decins du Monde.

In June 2002 the Israeli government began to build a barrier around the West Bank that, according to the Israel Defence Forces, will "lessen the impact and scope of terrorism on the citizens of Israel." Already 185 km long, it will eventually be 622 km long and consist of fences, ditches, patrol roads, and a concrete wall 8-9 m high costing an estimated $4.7m (2.5m pounds) per km.

Worst hit will be the villages confined within the "seam zone," the territory between the green line (the 1949 armistice line that delineates Israel's pre-1967 border with the West Bank) and the barrier, according to the report. Villages situated in the enclaves formed by the route of the barrier will also be badly affected, it says. Palestinians wanting to leave these areas to travel to another town in the West Bank will have to apply for a permit and pass through a checkpoint or gate guarded by a soldier.

People requiring emergency health treatment in Palestinian hospitals in other parts of the West Bank face an even longer journey than at present and may not be able to access emergency care at all during the night, according to Regis Garrigue, head of Medecins du Monde's Palestinian projects. He said: "The people inside the enclaves are in a big jail. Sometimes the passage into the enclaves is shut for a day or a night or even a week."

In Abu Dis and Aizaria, two Palestinian towns where the barrier has already been completed, the average time for an ambulance to travel to the nearest hospitals in Jerusalem has increased from about 10 minutes to over one hour and 50 minutes, according to the report. Mr Garrigue says that once the barrier is completed this problem will affect many more villages. "If patients don't have access to their medical facilities or if medical staff cannot reach the facilities to provide medical services the healthcare system is bound to deteriorate," the report warns.

Dr Yitzhak Sever, director of the Department of International Relations in the Ministry of Health, said that all the inhabitants on the west of the barrier, located within the seam zone, are given permits to travel to other Palestinian hospitals. More than 45 000 permits for patients were issued over the past year. He also stressed that Israeli doctors treat Palestinian patients and train health professionals, despite the former Palestinian Health Minister's refusal to sit on joint Palestinian-Israeli health committees after the second intifada in 2000. "Maybe the barrier will not be continued, we don't know. It's there for security reasons as determined by the Ministry of Defence. I know in the majority of places in the West Bank, building is frozen and the barrier will be under debate in the negotiations about disengagement and peace. We hope the new era will being peace for the two peoples," he told the BMJ.

Source



Rod Liddle: Things I shouldn't say about black people

There are some things that you can say and there are some things that you can't say. Paradoxically, they are sometimes the same things. "For example, did you know that black and Asian women commit far more crime than their white counterparts? Almost one third of the total female British prison population is drawn from black and Asian communities. "Now, that's one of the things you can't say, or shouldn't say, unless you're the British National party. Indeed, you may already be twitching at your breakfast table. Those who point out that black people commit more crime than white people tend to be racists, don't they? To highlight the apparently greater propensity of black and Asian people to commit crime is what we call "playing the race card". It foments resentment and antagonism, true or not.

Last week an organisation called the Fawcett Society said just this, however. The Fawcett Society is not a descendant of the League of St George or an ally of Migrationwatch UK or Robert Kilroy-Silk. It is an impeccably liberal pressure group. "Our vision is of a society in which women and men are equal partners in the home, at work and in public life," it proclaims, and its latest report is about how women from ethnic minority backgrounds are having a rough time. "They are far more likely to be put in prison, for example. Now, that is one of the things you can say. Black and Asian women make up 8% of the general population and 29% of the female prison population, ergo they are the victims of an institutionally racist society.

But you can't say that black and Asian women commit more crime. Just as you can say that our schools are failing male pupils from a Caribbean background, but not that boys from a Caribbean background are, for whatever reason, academically not up to scratch. It would seem to me to follow that if children from most other ethnic minority backgrounds do well in school, and that girls from a Caribbean background do very well in school, then the problem might lie with some facet of Caribbean male culture, rather than with the education system.

The Fawcett Society report is a perfect model of its kind; disingenuous, simplistic and quick to draw fatuous conclusions from selective data. We are told that British women from ethnic backgrounds (BMEs, as they charmingly put it, for black and minority ethnic) are subject to "systematic discrimination" and that they are "powerless, poor and passed over" and, worse still, "almost entirely absent from the rank of decision makers in the UK". The report's conclusions ignore entirely the enormous and complex differences between the various British ethnic minorities: the implication is that all women from an ethnic minority background are discriminated against by the white male hegemony - and it's bloody well got to stop.

The truth is rather different. In terms of employment and income (and education), British people from Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Malaysian backgrounds easily outperform their white counterparts, both male and female. In terms of earnings, women from ethnic minority backgrounds (excepting those from Pakistan and Bangladesh but including, for example, African and Caribbean women) easily outperform white women. The average weekly wage of a white British woman in 2002 was œ180, compared with œ187 for all black and Asian women, œ199 for African women and œ210 for Caribbean women. These figures come from the Cabinet Office.

One year later the Downing Street policy unit concluded, in a report entitled Ethnic Minorities and the Labour Market, that "the old picture of white success and ethnic underachievement is now out of date". So exactly who is being discriminated against here? Should we not be manning the barricades in defence of white women and calling for positive discrimination against those women from our African or Asian communities? And how do we explain the poor performance of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women (who earn only œ140 per week)? Does the problem lie solely with the racist and sexist white hegemony or might there be something within the indigenous culture that is holding these women back? Does our Muslim community, for example, share the Fawcett Society's aspirations of "a society in which women and men are equal partners in the home, at work and in public life"? Humera Khan is a co-founder of An-Nisa, the Muslim welfare organisation. I don't think she is quite in accord with the Fawcett Society, for a start: "Most women of colour come from both religious and cultural backgrounds that appreciate a healthy separation of roles . . . this can be a problem when facing white feminism, which has a completely different starting point".

So when the Fawcett Society complains that there is not a single female Muslim MP, who should we blame? Recently in The Guardian newspaper, Joseph Harker, an excellent journalist, attacked the Labour party's policy of adopting all-women shortlists for selecting MPs. He pointed out that only 12 Labour MPs will be standing down at the next election and in seven of those seats there will be all-women shortlists: this necessarily limits the opportunity to select a black or Asian candidate, he argued.

The obvious question, if prejudice and discrimination were solely the preserve of a white male power elite, is: why should it? Is it not a tacit admission that some of our ethnic minority communities are suffused with more sexism than the rest of us? Harker then went on to demolish the case for "quotas" for selecting MPs before concluding, mystifyingly, that Labour must ensure that all shortlists contain not just women but also people from a black or Asian background, disabled people and of course gays and lesbians. That's a hell of a shortlist, Joseph. And what if they don't want to be Labour MPs - should we round them up anyway? These attempts to level the playing field through crude social engineering do not work. The reason why women, as a rule, earn less than men and occupy fewer positions of power may be put down partly to vestigial institutionalised sexism; but it is also down to individual choice. In other words, often women do not earn as much as men because they wish to make child-caring their primary role. And this preference is more marked in our Pakistani and Bangladeshi community.

And black and Asian women have a greater propensity to commit crime than their white counterparts. There may well be strong socio-economic reasons for why all this is the case; but nonetheless it is the case. Certainly it is not down to genetic predisposition, as your true racist would aver. But neither is it all down to institutionalised racism and sexism, which we might banish with the sweep of a hand and the passing of a law."

(From "The Times")

posted by jonjayray 05:43

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Tuesday, February 22, 2005

 

Men are the losers of the sexual revolution

Columnist Jeffrey Hart recently argued that women were the losers of the sexual revolution. He has a point. By making themselves available outside of marriage, women have undermined the institution of marriage. The problem with Hart's analysis is that he assumes that men want sex and women want marriage. But what if men want marriage, too? Aren't they also losers of the sexual revolution?

Men do want marriage. There is no comfort in a different woman every night. Moreover, that approach to sex might produce offspring, but not a lifetime relationship with sons, daughters and grandchildren.

Because of the emphasis on the sexual benefits to men of the sexual revolution, many people blame men for the revolution. But, of course, it wasn't men who created the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution was a happening. Many men were surprised at the sudden availability of young women. I was a university professor during the 1960s. I remember the complaints of male students that "nice girls are ruining themselves." Sex became casual. It no longer was proceeded by a long period of dating, going steady or being "pinned." Sex became a date activity like going to a movie. Eventually with the present-day "hook-up," sex was divorced from dating altogether.

People who study the sexual revolution blame it on feminists. No doubt feminist intellectual arguments in favor of female promiscuity played a role, but I doubt a significant percentage of the suddenly available young women were being guided by the intellectual musings of feminists. I don't know why the sexual revolution occurred. But I do know that many young men were of two minds about it. It was a helpful development for raging harmones, but it made it difficult for a guy to get a girl of his own, someone special to him.

Eventually, guys may get over their reluctance to enter into long-term relationships with women who have been in bed with their friends or friends of their friends. When I ask men I know who are in their 30s and 40s why they have not married, they do not answer that female promiscuity makes it unnecessary. They say that they are reluctant to propose to easy women. One man put it this way: "I would be uncomfortable in social gatherings where 15 percent of the people had been in bed with my wife."

The sexual revolution has provided men with easy sex, but not with families and wives who don't walk out on them. Feminists may have destroyed the chastity of women, but they certainly destroyed the security of marriage. Today it makes no sense for a man to marry even if sex were unavailable from "hook-ups." The reason is the extreme risk that marriage today imposes on husbands. A wife can throw her husband out of his house, take his children and half or more of his income without having to have a real reason for the financial and emotional ruin she brings to her husband. We hear a lot about successful middle-aged men who leave their wives for younger "trophy" wives. But most divorces are initiated by women and are involuntary divorces from the husbands' standpoints.

Back when marriages were real, solid grounds were required for divorce. Moreover, divorce was not designed to financially ruin men. Today divorce proceedings treat husbands and fathers as criminals in the dock. If a husband fights over custody of children or visitation rights, the wife simply tells the police that he has threatened her and gets a restraining order, or she reports him to Child Protective Services as a child abuser. A man who marries today is either ignorant of the risks, has great confidence in his choice of mate or is a fool.

More here



VILIFICATION LAWS TO KILL FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Charges under such laws have now been thrown out in the USA and Sweden but there has been one conviction of a Christian pastor in the Australian State of Victoria -- though only in a low level tribunal so far. It has not yet gone to appeal. But it does focus the minds of concerned Australians:

A raft of new legislation is being passed throughout the Western world. These laws are called by various names, such as vilification or tolerance or discrimination laws. Sometimes they are referred to as hate-crime legislation. Whatever their title, these laws are problematic for a number of reasons.

There are different types of vilification laws, based on a wide variety of issues, such as race, religion, gender, sexuality and ethnicity. They often come with stiff penalties if a person is found guilty. While the intentions behind them may have been good (to reduce hatred and vilification, etc), these laws have generated a number of worrying outcomes (whether intended or not). I list here 10 major shortcomings of this type of legislation:

A first problem with these sorts of laws is that they tend to confuse different issues. For example, one should not mistreat or discriminate against particular persons because of something they cannot help, such as their country of birth or their gender. But these laws are less helpful in other areas, such as in lifestyle choices or in religious beliefs. When a belief or behaviour is chosen, it is quite different from something that is intrinsic to a person and cannot be altered. Thus, in the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, we have the conflation and confusion of two quite different issues: race and religion. Race cannot be helped. You are born into one race and remain a member of that race for the rest of your life. But religion is different. While most people at first follow the religious practices of their parents or community, when older, people often will accept or reject that religious upbringing. Religious conversion of course is a chief example of this.

There are a few rare exceptions, when both race and religion overlap, as among Jewish people. Jews can be described as both a race and a religious community. But some Muslims want to claim both race and religion for their faith, something which is clearly far-fetched.

Similarly, some homosexuals argue that they are born that way. But sexual preference is not at all akin to racial make-up. Increasingly, however, vilification laws are being passed which include sexual orientation.

Victoria's vilification legislation confuses two quite different issues, and muddies the waters from the very beginning. Fortunately two Australian states have recently dropped plans for religious vilification legislation: South Australia and Western Australia. They have realised that while there might be a case for racial vilification laws, there is no rationale for religious vilification legislation.

Second, these laws are usually broad, vague, nebulous and filled with ambiguous and unclear terminology. Consider the Victorian Act. It speaks of "severe contempt", "revulsion" and "severe ridicule". Such terms are far too subjective, arbitrary and loose to serve any useful role in a judicial setting. Good legislation should always have not only clear terminology, but also clear aims and objects. A law is a bad law if one is never quite sure whether it applies to oneself or not. Such fuzziness in the legislation makes these laws particularly vulnerable to misuse and abuse.

One can act in good faith, and still be found guilty. Indeed, acting "reasonably and in good faith" is part of the exceptions in the Victorian legislation. Yet two Christian pastors who thought they were doing exactly that were told by a judge that they were not. So some official must now determine, with all the wisdom of Solomon, what is in good faith and what is not. In fact, the very issue of acting in "good faith" seems to be thrown into doubt in the Victorian Act when it states that a "person's motive in engaging in any conduct is irrelevant"! If motivation is irrelevant, then how can one begin to even speak about acting in good faith? Is that not a matter of motivation and intent?

Third, these laws are usually instigated by particular members of the community at the expense of the rest of the community. In Victoria, it was mainly certain Muslim and Jewish groups which pushed for the legislation. There was no general demand for the legislation. When the Victorian legislation was first debated, the Government and Opposition received more than 15,000 submissions, letters and e-mails on the issue, with almost all of them against it. In spite of this huge outcry by the community, a handful of politicians, influenced by a handful of minority activists, foisted this unpopular and unnecessary law upon all Victorians. So much for democracy at work.

Twice I publicly debated the author of the legislation. On both occasions she said that she did not feel there would be many cases at all arising because of this legislation. But as I pointed out, if that is the case, why do we need the law in the first place? If so few cases are expected, then that proves that things are fine as they are, and we do not need this big-brother legislation forced upon us.

Fourth, most Western nations and states already have legislation on the books that deals with assault, incitement to violence, defamation, slander or libel. All the serious activities that do warrant political and legal sanction are already covered. So why the need for these extra laws, unless there is an attempt to promote someone's agenda, to engage in social engineering and manipulation?

Fifth, usually in these laws the burden of proof is on the one accused of being offensive or of vilifying. Unlike the usual course of judicial events, the person charged is in effect found guilty until proven innocent. Those charged must prove that they have not committed the crime, or why they qualify for any exemptions. And usually they must bear all the expenses as well (court costs, legal costs, time off work, etc.) In the meantime, the one bringing the charges gets the full backing of the state, often with all costs paid by the state (or taxpayer). Thus these laws are discriminatory and are unjust in their application.

Sixth, when religious cases are involved, we have the anomaly of a secular judge or authority making complex judgements on matters of religious and theological dispute. When religious people themselves are quite divided on many questions of theology and religion, how is some secular arbiter who knows nothing of the theological subtleties and complexities supposed to make a helpful and informed decision concerning issues that would baffle and divide even professional theologians and religious educators? The State should not encroach into religious matters, and should not set itself up as an arbiter of theological disputes. It is exactly the hallmark of totalitarian states when governments decide upon questions of religion and belief. By telling people what to think and what to believe, the State moves well beyond its role in a democratic society.

Seventh, concerning religious vilification, the whole idea of bringing up concepts like offence and vilification is quite bizarre. Religious truth claims by definition imply that some religions are true, some are false. Of course a Muslim will be offended if a Christian says that Jesus is God. Of course a Hindu will be offended if a Muslim claims that only Islam is the final and true religion. Of course an atheist will be offended if a Jew insists that God exists. Of course a Christian will be offended if a Muslim says Jesus did not die and rise again from the tomb. If an atheist scoffs at the claims of Mohammed and mocks the Koran, of course a devout Muslim will take offence. If homosexual activists send up nuns in a pride march, of course Catholics will feel ridiculed and vilified. If I say that Jesus is the only path to eternal life, of course universalists will be offended.

Devoid of truth

To seek to do away with all feeling of ridicule, offence and insult would be to effectively rob most religions (and especially those which make exclusive truth claims) of most of their core doctrines and teachings. We will be left with a watered down lowest-common-denominator mish-mash that offends no one. And one which is totally devoid of truth as well. But of course many of those behind the multicultural lobby and the push for tolerance (and the authors of these laws) have exactly that in mind. Indeed, plenty of inter-faith councils and other ecumenical bodies have stated their aims quite clearly in this regard. They seek to rid the world of what they consider to be offensive religious claims. And usually the claims of Christianity are first and foremost the ones they have in mind.

Eight, hate crimes are double jeopardy. Not only are the crimes themselves judged, but now so too are the "bad thoughts" behind them. Hate-crime legislation says we must punish you further for the hateful thoughts that went into your illegal action. In fact, it is even worse than that: it creates a crime where none previously existed. By simply expressing a point of view which results in no outward action, a judge can rule that your words may have incited violence or hatred. So we have here a crime with no victims. There is only the potential for an unpleasant outcome to occur. Someone, somewhere, sometime, might be offended. No crime has taken place. Just some vague potential for someone to feel offended, maybe.

Nine, hate-crime laws are bad laws because they punish people for their thoughts. In turn, thought police are needed to make sure everyone is thinking politically allowable thoughts. But who determines what a hate crime is? And how? If a homosexual activist calls a Christian a bigot, is he guilty of a hate crime? If a secularist calls a concerned Catholic a religious Taliban, is that a hate crime? There seem to be a lot of double standards here. Christians are vilified every day, but I do not hear those screaming for tolerance and acceptance rushing to their defence. But if Christians dare stand up for what they believe in, they are dragged off to the tribunals by those same advocates of tolerance.

Ten, the very idea of vilification legislation is a severe curb on freedom of speech. The right to argue one's case, to criticise other points of view, to point out differences of religious and political viewpoints - these are all fundamentals of a free and democratic society. When we say that government officials will decide who is allowed to debate issues, and how that debate its to take place, we are then moving away from freedom to repression. And when state authorities decide questions of political and religious truth, we have then moved from democracy to tyranny.

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posted by jonjayray