Sunday, December 05, 2010


Angry British boss walks through police cordon and grabs 'bomb' to prove it's just bag of old clothes (and is arrested under the Terrorism Act)

This is so typical of official British stupidity. How is it terrorism to show that there is no danger? It seems the opposite of terorism to me. In a decent country he would be praised. But "proper procedure" is all in Britain -- JR

A businessman has been charged under the Terrorism Act after he broke through a police cordon and tipped open two suspect packages to prove they were harmless.

James Mullan ducked under police tape and emptied old clothes and shoes from bags left in Ipswich town centre after become frustrated by the lengthy wait for a bomb scare to be resolved.

Mullan, a watch repairman, was given a conditional discharge at South East Suffolk magistrates' court after his 'reckless' behaviour last month.

Police closed the market on the Cornhill in Ipswich and evacuated nearby buildings and a market after the bags were found abandoned at 2.30pm on November 17.

Mullan, of Kesgrave, Suffolk, became upset about the closure continuing while police waited for an Army bomb disposal team to arrive from Colchester, Essex. And at 5.10pm he took the law into his own hands and dodged around police to open the bags in a council customer service centre beside the town hall.

The 62-year-old was arrested when he emerged from the office and told police that the bags were harmless.

The watch repairman said he had become frustrated by a perceived lack of police activity during the drama and wanted to resolve the situation himself. The court heard how a number of market traders had also become frustrated because they were losing trade.

Jeremy Kendall, defending Mullan, said: 'The defendant knew from previous experience that a bomb disposal team would have to come up from Colchester and he wanted to act sooner.

'He went through the cordon and into the building and opened the bags which were full of clothes and shoes. 'What he did was stupid,' Mr Kendall admitted. 'Had the device been explosive then he would clearly have endangered his own safety. But he felt there was an unexplained delay and wanted to help, not hinder. 'Ironically, he did help the operation by revealing there was nothing explosive there.'

Mullan admitted a charge of breaking through a police cordon, an offence under Section 36 (2) of the Terrorism Act 2000. District Judge David Cooper gave him a conditional discharge for a year and ordered him to pay £85 costs. Judge Cooper told him: 'You were reckless and impatient. As an upstanding member of the community you must abide by police cordons.'

The court heard how police reopened the area to the public at 5.30pm after Mullan's actions proved the rucksack and holdall did not contain explosives.

SOURCE







Sweden's justice system may become a laughing stock over the rape charges against Wikileaks figurehead Julian Assange

APPARENTLY having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape. That was the basis for a recent revival of rape allegations against Wikileaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity.

Sweden's Public Prosecutor's Office was embarrassed in August this year when they leaked to the media that they were seeking to arrest Assange for rape, then on the same day withdrew the arrest warrant because in their own words there was "no evidence". The damage to Assange's reputation is incalculable.

Three months on, and three prosecutors later, the Swedes seemed to be clear on their basis to proceed with a headline-grabbing international arrest warrant. If consensual sex that started out with the intention of condom use, and actual condom use ended up without condom, that's rape.

Statements by the two female "victims" Sophia Wilén and Anna Ardin that there was no fear or violence would stop a rape charge in any western country dead in its tracks. Rape is a crime of violence. Both women boasted of their of their respective celebrity conquests on internet posts and mobile phones texts after the intimacy they would now see him destroyed for.

Ardin hosted a party in Assange's honour at her flat after the 'crime' and tweeted to her followers that she was with the "the world's coolest smartest people, it's amazing!" Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these and thereby destroy evidence of Assange's innocence. She has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends.

Their SMS texts to each other show a plan to contact the Swedish newspaper Expressen beforehand, in order to maximise the damage to Assange. They belong to the same political group, and attended a public lecture given by Assange and organised by them.

The exact content of Sophia Wilén's mobile phone texts is not yet known, but their bragging and generally positive content about Assange has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors.

The consent of both women to sex with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors. Niether Wilén's nor Ardin's texts complain of rape. These facts should make any normal prosecutor gravely concerned about whether a false complaint is being made.

But then neither Arden nor Wilén complained to the police. They collaboratively 'sought advice', a technique in Sweden enabling citizens to avoid being sued for making false complaints.

In any normal first world country, the prosecutor would know that her case is not just a deeply-flawed waste of time, but a dangerous perversion of the serious objectives of rape laws.

The womens' lawyer Claes Borgström was questioned by the media as to how the women themselves could be contradicting the legal characterisation of Swedish prosecutors; a crime of non-consent by consent. Borgström's answer is emblematic of how divorced from reality this matter is: "They (the women) are not jurists". You need a law degree to know whether you have been raped or not in Sweden.

How the Swedish authorities propose to prosecute for victims who neither saw themselves as such, nor acted as such is easily answered: You're not a Swedish lawyer, so you wouldn't understand anyway.

Make no mistake: it is not Julian Assange that is on trial here, but Sweden and its reputation as a modern and model country with rules of law.

SOURCE





Permanently entrenched liberalism for Britain?

Three parties sharing a liberal consensus

The monstrous birth of a new Liberal Conservative Party is now certain. One of its midwives is Sir John Major of Maastricht and Black Friday.

A few weeks ago I drew attention to the amazing remarks of Francis Maude, a close ally of David Cameron, who said he would prefer a coalition to a Tory majority after the next Election. I am sure Mr Cameron agrees with this. Now, Sir John – another close Cameron ally – has called for a permanent alliance of two of our three parties against the people of Britain.

Not that he put it quite like that. In a little-noticed but important speech in Cambridge, he said that he liked the Coalition and hoped some way could be found ‘to prolong co-operation beyond this Parliament’. This, he said, could lead to a realignment of British politics.

He recalled that the Tories had an informal pact with the Liberals in 1951, which probably saved that party from oblivion. He didn’t say – but most Liberals know – that they will need something similar to save them from massacre at the next Election.

This is revolutionary stuff. And I am grateful to Mr Major, whose strange, mealy, roundabout way of speaking often reveals more than he means it to. Because he also explained the attraction of coalitions – to politicians: ‘Two parties are more likely to enjoy a tolerant electorate for policies that are painful.’

Or, in other words, that a coalition can ram through unpopular policies (Mr Major is an expert on those) more easily than one-party governments.

This is, of course, even more the case when the third party actually agrees with the Coalition about almost everything, and is still trying to work out how to pretend to be the Opposition, when it doesn’t really want to oppose.

What a perfect outcome for the political class – two liberal parties in permanent power, pro-EU, pro-crime, anti-education, anti-marriage, warmist. And an Opposition that doesn’t oppose. A pity about the rest of us.

SOURCE






PETA forces game to add tofu character, designer gets last laugh‏

PETA is so often outraged that the animal rights group has become rather easy to ignore. It's only when their targets fight back that people sit up and pay attention. Such was the case this week when the makers of the hit videogame Super Meat Boy took a swing at the outspoken PETA.

Super Meat Boy, a self-described "tough as nails" platformer, stars an animated cube of meat who is on a quest to save his girlfriend. The game is as bloody as it is difficult, a fact which no doubt caught the attenion of PETA. The group released their own version of the game's hero, Super Tofu Boy.

The makers of Super Meat Boy were so flattered by the parody that they decided to add Super Tofu Boy as a downloadable character on the game's PC version. However, the Super Meat Boy peeps did express some concern that PETA didn't do its homework. Team Meat member Edmund McMillen explains that Super Meat Boy isn't really a cube of meat. He's "simply a boy without skin." Zing!

In a blog post, McMillen admits that he hoped PETA would react like this.. He writes that he "actually repeatedly made fake user names in Peta's forum pushing the game at them in hopes something like this would happen." McMillen goes on to thank PETA for helping us "turn Super Meat Boy into a household name and of course for making themselves look quite foolish in the process..."

This isn't the first time a company has decided to turn PETA's ire to its own advantage. Earlier this year, Dodge was in PETA's crosshairs for using a monkey in one of its commercials. Not surprisingly, PETA expressed outrage. But Dodge got the last laugh when they digitally erased the monkey in the commercial, making for a surreal and hilarious ad that ended up getting a lot more press that the original.

PETA -- if you can't beat 'em, mock 'em.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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