Sunday, August 07, 2011


More multiculturalism in Britain

TWO police cars were set on fire overnight as hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of north London to protest the fatal shooting of a young father by police.

Trouble flared after a crowd of around 300 gathered in the Tottenham area, with some hurling missiles and smashing shop windows as the unrest threatened to spiral into a riot.

It followed a march, involving around 120 people, from the Broadwater Farm area to Tottenham police station demanding "justice" for the shot man named locally as Mark Duggan. The black father-of-four, 29, died on Thursday, allegedly after he exchanged fire with police officers.

Shortly after dark last night, two police cars parked around 180 metres from the police station were set on.

A spokesman for London's Metropolitan Police said officers have been dispatched to disperse the crowd. He could not confirm that those responsible for the trouble were connected to the protest.

Local resident David Akinsanya, 46, said several store windows were smashed and a second police car was also torched. "It's really bad," he said. "There are two police cars on fire. I'm feeling unsafe. It looks like it's going to get very tasty. I saw a guy getting attacked."

The Broadwater Farm area was the site of a notorious riot in 1985 that followed the death of an African-Caribbean woman who suffered heart failure during a police search of her home.

Police Constable Keith Blakelock was brutally stabbed and beaten to death in the ensuing unrest.

SOURCE





Prison drug taking in Britain is so bad that even the wardens are getting stoned... on the fumes

Solution? Improved ventilation!

Prison officers have complained to the Government’s health and safety watchdog that staff are getting ‘high’ from cannabis fumes escaping from prisoners’ cells. The warders’ union says its members suffer headaches and sickness because inmates smoke pot. It raised fears that this is affecting officers’ mood and performance.

The Health and Safety Executive has asked the Prison Service to carry out a risk assessment, which might lead to improved ventilation.

The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) says the use of cannabis is widespread among the 80,000-strong population of British jails, where inmates are allowed to smoke tobacco in their cells because they are exempt from the ban on smoking in business and office premises.

The union claims that the drug is being brought into prisons more easily because of staffing cuts.

Brian Traynor, the POA’s health and safety chairman, said that while serving at Walton Jail in Liverpool he felt giddy and that night had to lie down while gardening. ‘I am convinced I was stoned because of the passive effect of the drugs smoked by prisoners,’ Mr Traynor said. He warned that officers could be driving home unaware they were under the influence of cannabis.

At Wandsworth Prison in South London, POA branch secretary Stewart McLaughlin said: ‘It is outrageous that we are exposed to cannabis smoke. We are the only members of the emergency services to have fitness tests in a smoke-filled environment. It could not be more upside-down.

He said prison officers at Wandsworth – one of Britain’s toughest jails – were complaining of vomiting and headaches. POA deputy general secretary Mark Freeman said: ‘The Government knows that this is going on in prisons all over the country but they are doing nothing about it. ‘After a 12 to 15-hour shift breathing in the fumes from cannabis, our members won’t be driving home. They’ll be flying home.’

Mr Freeman claimed that even though jails were experiencing high levels of drug use – including heroin, cocaine and cannabis – the Government planned to reduce daily cell inspections in an effort to reduce costs.

A spokeswoman for the HSE said: ‘Our expectation is that Her Majesty’s Prison Service should carry out an assessment of the risks posed to staff and, in consultation with those working in affected areas, devise some reasonably practicable control measures.

‘This might include some of the same measures identified for controlling smoke from cell fires, such as improved ventilation and mobile ventilation units.’

A Prison Service spokeswoman said yesterday: ‘We work hard to keep illicit drugs out of prison, using a range of security measures to reduce drug supply, including working closely with police forces and carrying out random mandatory drug tests. ‘Targeted cell searches are undertaken in all prisons on a risk-assessment basis, with daily searches in Category A prisons.

‘Prisoners are allowed to smoke tobacco in their own cells. No smoking is allowed in communal areas. ‘There has been no change to the staffing level during visits at HMP Wandsworth.’

SOURCE





First they came for the anarchists



The clipping attached comes from the City of Westminster police’s “Counter Terrorist Focus List” (PDF, H/T to Liberal Conspiracy). I’m not quite an anarchist – although some of my best friends are, and the works of people like David Friedman (PDF) and Georgetown legal philosopher John Hasnas (PDF) make me unsure. But saying that "anarchists should be reported to your local Police" is a pretty extraordinary command that should worry everybody. Disliking the state is now enough for your neighbours to report on you, and for plod to take notice.

Instead of a legitimate request for information about people who might be violent at riots (who quite incorrectly call themselves anarchists while demanding more state spending), the police have targeted people who believe something to spy on. The reason, in the police’s own words, is that anarchists:

consider the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society.

Heaven forbid that anybody think the state might be harmful. Where could they have gotten that idea from? Fortunately the police are on their way, and they’re here to help.

The thinking behind this is, at best, a misunderstanding of the police’s role. They police are supposed to protect people from harm – not the state from peaceful change. Thinking that the police should protect the state from peaceful reform is more akin to 20th century totalitarianism than modern liberal democracy. Let’s not fall for the myth that a small group of violent thugs somehow implicates other people who share some of their beliefs. Nobody should be considered a criminal because of their opinions. If the police are getting involved, actions are what count.

We should be profoundly disturbed by this development, and not because it’s people who mistrust the state that are being targeted. The police section that released this piece is probably incompetent. But they’re incompetents who have the power to throw innocent people in jail, and they're sniffing around people who've had "bad" thoughts.

No, this isn’t East Germany, where you’d be thrown in jail (or worse) for holding unusual political opinions. But, when the police investigate people for thoughtcrime, it’s not the England that most people think they live in either.

SOURCE






Sao Paulo council calls for Heterosexual Pride Day

Homosexual privilege resented

The city council of South America's biggest city has adopted legislation calling for a Heterosexual Pride Day to be celebrated on the third Sunday of each December.

Sao Paulo Mayor Gilberto Kassab must sign the legislation for it to become law and has said only that he is studying it. His office declined Wednesday to say whether he supports the proposal.

The legislation's author, Carlos Apolinario, said the idea for a Heterosexual Pride Day is "not anti-gay but a protest against the privileges the gay community enjoys."

As an example, he mentioned how Sao Paulo's huge gay pride day parade is held every year on Paulista Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in this city of 20 million people, while the March for Jesus organized by evangelical groups is not allowed on the same avenue.

"I respect gays and I am against any kind of aggression made against them," Apolinario said. "I have no trouble coexisting with gays as long as their behavior is normal."

The Brazilian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Association criticized the legislation, saying it could provoke homophobic violence.

"How many LGBTs will be attacked because of the message that only heterosexuality makes someone a moral person and a good citizen," the association said in a statement.

"The celebration of heterosexual pride is inappropriate because it belittles the just cause of the LGBT community," the statement added. "Unlike homosexuals, heterosexuals are not discriminated against simply for being heterosexuals."

In a recent report, the gay rights group Grupo Gay da Bahia said 260 gays were murdered last year in Brazil, up 113 percent from five years earlier.

SOURCE

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

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

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

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, 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.

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

No comments: