Thursday, May 29, 2014



More multicultural wife-murder in Britain



A husband who strangled to death his pregnant wife two weeks after police arrested him for threatening to kill her with a hammer was sentenced to life imprisonment today.

Mohammed Badiuzzaman, 34, pleaded guilty to murdering mother-of-three Sabeen Thandi at the Old Bailey earlier this month.

Before the killing he told colleagues he planned to kill his wife, bragged that UK jail was ‘easy peasy’ and ranted about Oscar Pistorius.

He was today sentenced to a minimum of 17 years in prison by Judge Christopher Moss QC, who described the defendant as ‘manipulative, devious and controlling’.

Mrs Thandi was strangled at her home in Forest Gate, London, in July last year, a fortnight after she obtained a restraining order against her husband, and after police had arrested him for making death threats.

Police officers are now under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission for releasing Badiuzzaman before he went on to kill.

Badiuzzaman had forced Mrs Thandi into a Muslim marriage and had moved in with her two months after they began dating in November 2012.

He was controlling, preventing her from leaving the house alone, forcing her to throw away ‘revealing’ clothes and instead wear a hijab because otherwise she would ‘feel his wrath’.

The security guard even tried to sell her home by visiting an estate agents and pretending he owned the property.

Doctor’s receptionist Mrs Thandi grew sick of Badiuzzaman’s abuse and visited solicitors in Watford in June last year seeking a divorce. She took out an order from Watford County Court on June 17 against Badiuzzaman to prevent him from entering her home, as she feared for her children’s safety.

But two days later Badiuzzaman became enraged after discovering Mrs Thandi was in love with a man in Pakistan whom she had met on Facebook, named in court as only as Majid.

Badiuzzaman duped his wife into getting into the car with him on the premise of taking her to work, but instead he drove her around for three hours and threatened her.

He said he had a hammer in his car boot and that if she did not revoke the order against him she would never see her son again, and that police would ‘find parts of her body in bits in bin bags’.

Mrs Thandi pleaded with her solicitors to revoke the order, and they proceeded to call the police.  Badiuzzaman was arrested on suspicion of threats to kill and unlawful imprisonment. While being cautioned he made no comment and grinned at police, but he was later released.

In the early hours of July 7 police received two silent 999 calls from the home the couple had shared and were met by Badiuzzaman at the door who said his wife was at work. He was calm and made conversation with officers but when they searched the property they found her lifeless body under a duvet in the bedroom.

Badiuzzaman told police: ‘I’ve killed my wife.’ But when paramedics asked him to tell them what he had done so that they might attempt to save her, he said he did not know.

Mrs Thandi was taken to Newham University Hospital where she was confirmed dead, and a post-mortem gave the cause of death as strangulation.

Before the killing he had told colleagues he intended to ‘stab’ Mrs Thandi and had talked for an hour about high-profile domestic violence murder cases of Oscar Pistorius and Shrien Dewani. He told colleagues ‘they have got away with it’ and ‘jail in Britain is easy peasy’.

Sentencing Judge Moss said: ‘From all that I’ve heard about you I have no doubt that you are a manipulative, devious and controlling person with a serious anger management issue.

‘It’s clear from the way in which she died that you intended that she should die. You strangled her in her bedroom in her own home.’

He added: ‘You murdered your estranged wife in her own home which you were excluded from by order of the county court.

‘It’s clear from the evidence in the case that this was an order you deserved and which you had no respect for, indeed you resented it.

‘You have deprived those children of the love and care of their mother in their formative years of their lives. You had no conceivable defence.’

The judge said he took into some account the fact that the defendant had pleaded guilty one day before the case was listed, and that he had shown some remorse, but added: ‘I suspect you feel sorrier for yourself than those affected by your actions.’

Officer in the case, Detective Inspector Euan McKeeve said: ‘We are very satisfied with the outcome of the case. Domestic violence in all its forms is totally abhorrent and cannot be tolerated. There’s likely to be some learning from the IPCC investigation, but because that investigation is ongoing I am unable to comment further at this time.’

Hertfordshire Police and the Met Police are now being investigated by the IPCC in relation to the incident.

An IPCC spokesman said: ‘The investigation is nearing conclusion, with most lines of enquiry completed by investigators.

‘We have interviewed ten officers and a civilian staff member from the Metropolitan Police Service under misconduct caution, in relation to their contact with Mrs Thandi prior to her death on 7 July 2013.

Two officers from Hertfordshire Constabulary have also been interviewed under misconduct caution, in relation to their contact with Mrs Thandi on 19 June 2013.

‘We have also taken statements from several independent witnesses, and are keeping the family updated on the progress of our investigation.’

SOURCE




Fort Lauderdale Flash Mob A Masterpiece Of Not Noticing

My friend Eustace (not his real name, or even close) down in the Peninsular State told me his wife drove through this fracas with their infant child in the car.

Fort Lauderdale police believe hundreds of young people made their way to the beach for one reason this Memorial Day, to cause trouble. Police described a volatile scene Monday night as they had to arrest dozens of people that were part of unruly crowds . . .

Police said around 5 o’clock in the afternoon, hundreds of young people made their way to the beach for one reason this Memorial Day, to cause trouble. Fort Lauderdale Police were in riot gear as a large crowd of young people moved through A1A reportedly causing mayhem.

“We had several reports of individuals who were reaching into vehicles, striking drivers. We have reports [of] individuals who were jumping on top of taxicabs,” said Detective Deanna Greenlaw with Fort Lauderdale Police Department . . .

Fort Lauderdale Police officials said a group of young people came to the beach to fight and when police quickly broke it up, they scattered through the streets . . .  [Police Arrest Dozens During Memorial Day Ruckus By The Beach, by Carey Codd; CBS Miami, May 26th]

Eustace tells me his Missus was thinking the whole time about my “Talk” column.  He then added: “There is, of course, no mention of the singular, conspicuous characteristic of the ‘unruly crowd’.”

I replied thus:

Why, Eustace, I don’t understand. The descriptions seem perfectly clear to me. I actually tallied them all:  “young people”; “people”; “unruly crowds”; “young people”; “young people”; “individuals”; “individuals”; “young people”; “individuals”; “troublemakers”; “people”; “a young person”; “people.”

You can’t get more specific than that! Not in the United States of Not Noticing, you can’t.

SOURCE

We read elsewhere:  Arrests by Race: 118 black males, 58 white males, 9 black females, 6 white females







Ducking from the Truth:  The 'Gay Agenda' v. Liberty

   “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” –George Washington (Farewell Address, 1796)

For five decades, a relentless and insidious campaign to undermine faith and family, the foundational tenets of our Republic, has been on the rise. With the 2008 election of Barack Hussein Obama, the most faith-intolerant regime in the history of our Republic, the growth of that campaign has become a malignant battle for the hearts and minds of American voters.

Most of the participants in this battle are unwitting pawns of the political Left, believing that they are simply supporting individual rights. In reality, they are systematically eroding the ground beneath the two most critical pillars of Liberty: faith and family. In the end, the inevitable and irrevocable terminus of these actions is tyranny.

Though social research organizations consistently find that those with gender identity issues make up less than 3% of the population, that tiny minority has become the most vociferous enemy of faith and family – and has rallied a substantial political constituency. For that reason, few social and political commentators will even venture into this arena, fearing public vilification and removal of their public platform by Leftmedia print and TV outlets under pressure from weak-kneed advertisers.

No such fear here, but as a prerequisite for this analysis, let it be stated clearly that the central government has no constitutional authority to regulate sexual activity between consenting adults. However, our Republic most assuredly has a stake in protecting religious Liberty, and marriage as defined by the Laws of Nature.

The first target of the Left and their homosexual agenda constituency is the first clause of the First Amendment to our Constitution, which states simply, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

That succinct proscription notwithstanding, Leftist judicial supremacists, who occupy what Thomas Jefferson called “the Despotic Branch,” have adulterated the plain language of that clause to greatly suppress the free exercise of Liberty across the nation. They have succeeded in large measure to supplant Rule of Law with the rule of men – the rule of egocentric executives and legislators who believe they are the font of wisdom sufficient for ruling over their subjects.

The second pillar of Liberty targeted by the Left is the family – beginning with marriage. In the words of Justice Joseph Story, “Marriage is … in its origin, a contract of natural law. … It is the parent, and not the child of society; the source of civility and a sort of seminary of the republic.”

As you recall, in 2008 candidate Obama himself feigned disdain for same-sex marriage and asserted a pretense of faith: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian … it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix. … I am not somebody who promotes same-sex marriage.” Of course, that was just another bald-faced election-year lie. A full 12 years earlier, while running for Illinois State Senate, Obama said this: “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”

Obama’s expressed sentiment therefore lasted only as long as the campaign. No sooner had he been elected than he began a concerted effort to undermine marriage by promoting “gay rights.” Most notably in 2010, just weeks before the “Tea Party Republicans” who had decimated the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections took control of the House, Obama signed last-minute legislation overturning the Clinton-era policy of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” thus subjecting military ranks to overt homosexuality.

What Leftist politicos understand, but most of their constituents do not, is that the deconstruction of religious Liberty and the family, starting with the redefinition of marriage, will ultimately result in the rise of an oppressive and dictatorial successor.

Occasionally, the Left attempts to merge both its assault on religious Liberty and upon the family into one battle, endeavoring to kill two birds with one stone – the first being the “Natural Law” contract of marriage, and the second being the objection to homosexuality by every religion on the planet.

Such was the case in May 2012, when homosexual advocates managed a successful coup d'état against one of the most faith- and family-centered organizations in the nation – the Boy Scouts of America – opening the door for homosexual members in order to open the next door for homosexual leaders.

Emboldened by that success, they began a national campaign to target Christian-owned pro-family businesses – small and large – endeavoring to break their support for marriage by way of legal injunctions against their expression of their faith. Finally, the coercive “gay lobby” campaign met its match.

A very high-profile failure was the homosexual assault on Chick-fil-A due to CEO Dan Cathy, and his very vocal Christian affirmation of faith and family. Cathy’s rejection of so-called “gay marriage” was the catalyst for an attempted national boycott against the restaurant chain, but the result was an outpouring of support for Chick-fil-A.

But homosexual advocates suffered a far more spectacular defeat just last month, as you undoubtedly heard, when the Arts and Entertainment network attempted to expel the patriarch of one of the most successful cable television programs in history, solely due to his expression of faith and support for marriage and family in a GQ magazine profile.

The details of the A&E defeat provide a useful case study in “David and Goliath” politics – grassroots activism versus huge media and political adversaries.

Phil Robertson, who heads the popular Duck Dynasty clan featured on A&E, was asked by GQ editors about sin and repentance, and he responded with a paraphrase from 1 Corinthians 6: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers – they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.” Robertson added a few comments considered crude by “cultured” leftists, but reflective of the provincial language of his Louisiana culture.

As soon as the article was published online, Robertson was attacked by the two most influential national homosexual advocacy organizations – the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the so-called “Human Rights” Campaign – for making “anti-gay remarks” in the GQ magazine profile. Typical of how Robertson’s remarks were framed are these pathetic pontifications from GLAAD spokesman Wilson Cruz: “Phil and his family claim to be Christian, but Phil’s lies about an entire community fly in the face of what true Christians believe. Phil’s decision to push vile and extreme stereotypes is a stain on A&E and his sponsors who now need to re-examine their ties to someone with such public disdain for LGBT people and families.”

A&E, which previously asked the Robertson family to reduce its show’s references to guns and closing with prayer – requests the Robertsons refused – swiftly expelled Phil, noting, “His personal views in no way reflect those of A&E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community.”

Within days of A&E’s decision, Sandra Cochran, CEO of Cracker Barrel, one of the largest family restaurant chains in the nation, announced with much fanfare that she was ordering merchandise connected to Phil Robertson removed from their shelves. Cochran noted, “We operate within the ideals of fairness, mutual respect and equal treatment of all people. These ideals are the core of our corporate culture.”

As I wrote Cochran, “Nothing Phil Robertson said offends your ‘corporate culture,’ unless you are offended by the foundational sacrament of marriage between man and woman as defined in the Old and New Testaments of Christian Scripture – and every other major world religion.”

The nation’s largest retailer, Walmart, wisely kept its shelves loaded with Duck Dynasty products.

The execs of A&E, Cracker Barrel and the highest profile homosexual advocacy organizations assumed the rest of the Robertson clan was more invested in their lucrative contracts with A&E than their faith, and their viewers were more invested in the asinine antics of reality shows than the substance and world view of the characters in this particular show.

Bad assumptions. Neither the Robertsons, nor their fans, duck the truth.

In less than 48 hours, Cracker Barrel issued one of the most stunning corporate apologies on record. “When we made the decision to remove and evaluate certain Duck Dynasty items, we offended many of our loyal customers. Our intent was to avoid offending, but that’s just what we’ve done. You flat out told us we were wrong. We listened. Today, we are putting all our Duck Dynasty products back in our stores, and, we apologize for offending you.”

Days later, after Phil Robertson’s family advised the network that they would not go on without their patriarch, A&E folded its hand. Apparently the network execs were more invested in their viewer share revenue than being “strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community.” As some sort of recompense for their gender-confused audience, they announced, “We will use this moment to launch a national public service campaign (PSA) promoting unity, tolerance and acceptance among all people, a message that supports our core values as a company, and the values found in Duck Dynasty.”

This week, the Robertson family announced their new endorsement line of firearms, undoubtedly a source of additional heartburn for A&E.

This resounding defeat of the homosexual lobby is a case study in how grassroots Americans can successfully confront and crush the Left elite. By extension, it is also a strong indication that Patriots across the nation are poised to deliver the same humiliating defeat to leftists in 2014 that they did in 2010.

The bottom line is that a growing number of grassroots Americans recognize that the Chick-fil-A and Duck Dynasty showdowns are not about homosexuals, chickens or ducks, but about the suppression of faith expression and the undermining of Liberty. Phil Robertson is not a bigot, but those who suppress religious Liberty in the name of “tolerance and diversity” certainly are.

Those who support the “gay agenda” certainly think they do so for the right reasons. But they’ve been lulled into thinking that this issue has no overarching implications for the Liberty of future generations. They are wrong.

SOURCE





Is this hospital a miracle cure for the NHS? It has a Michelin chef, happy patients and is run by doctors and nurses. And shock, horror, it's operated at a profit by a private firm

Just imagine an NHS hospital whose standards match those of a top-quality hotel, with a welcoming reception area, polished floors, tasteful artwork on the freshly-painted walls, and menus inspired by a Michelin-starred chef.

A public hospital where the doctors and nurses — and even porters and cleaners — are free to decide what’s best for the patients, and to put good ideas into practice without waiting for the orders of some remote, out-of-touch mandarin.

Where the innovative working practices owe more to successful modern companies such as Toyota and Argos than a welfare state system created more than 60 years ago to cater for the needs of a very different Britain.

In a week when the failings of the NHS have again been laid bare, with hospital trusts begging for bail-out loans to pay for vital equipment, and discharging thousands of elderly patients during the small hours to ease the pressure on wards, it sounds like a pipe-dream.

Unlikely as it might seem, however, last week I visited just such a hospital.

For someone like me, who grew up during the halcyon days of social healthcare in the Fifties and Sixties and has lived through its decline with mounting despair, my day at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, was enormously uplifting.

And it was all the more remarkable because, barely three years ago, a health minister wrote off this same hospital as ‘a financial and clinical basket-case’, and placard-waving trade unionists were camped at the gates in protest against its seemingly certain closure.

Opened with great expectations in 1983 as one of the new wave of small, consultant-only hospitals, for a brief few years Hinchingbrooke had performed well enough.  But by the mid-90s, the quality of its service had faded along with its cheap, breezeblock façade.

John Major, the then-Prime Minister, was embarrassed by an acute bed shortage at the hospital just as he was proclaiming the NHS ‘safe in his hands’.

The hospital made headlines again soon after, when a supposedly dead woman came back to life in its mortuary; but as time marched on, and the Tories gave way to Labour, Hinchingbrooke itself seemed beyond miraculous revivals.

A few years ago, standards in some departments were among the worst in the country. In A&E, patients languished for ages in a dank, garishly-painted waiting room, and treatment, when it came, was so haphazard that one toddler was sent home with an undetected broken leg.

The colorectal unit was worse still. During one botched operation, a surgical instrument was stitched inside a woman patient.

Entering the unit now, it is hard to believe its grim recent history. The first thing that struck me was the cheerfulness of the nurses. Then, written on brightly-coloured stars pinned to the noticeboard, I read the patients’ own glowing tributes, copied from the feedback forms they must now receive before discharge.

‘So much care and attention . . . environment light, clean and airy . . . food is brilliant . . . fantastic! Everybody was great.’

The transformation was summed up by staff-nurse Leighann Shoebridge, who has worked at Hinchingbrooke for 14 years. ‘It wasn’t very nice coming to work, to be honest,’ she says, recalling the hospital’s darkest days. ‘We faced staff shortages every day, and there was no back-up if we needed help.

‘Patients’ bells weren’t answered; medication records were poor.

‘I feel so much happier now — this is a totally different place today.’

And while ward matron Joanne Dixon admits the unit’s problems ‘aren’t completely resolved’,

71-year-old Gillian Peacock, due to be discharged that day after recovering from an infection, told me she would gladly stay longer.

So how has this spectacular turnaround happened? How has one hospital managed to shake off its ‘basket-case’ tag and flourish, while dozens more are failing to cope?

What has happened at Hinchingbrooke only serves to confirm the inefficiency of the National Health Service’s hidebound bureaucrats, with their sclerotic systems and outdated ideology.

In truth, its fortunes have been reversed by the entrepreneurial vision and energy of Circle Partnership — the private equity health company handed a ten-year, £1 billion contract to run it as a franchise under the NHS ‘brand’.Mortality levels, waiting lists and treatment times are down; patient and staff satisfaction levels up.

Last week, the 235-bed hospital’s achievement was recognised when it was voted the best in the country for quality of care.

Visitors are greeted by landscaped grounds, facades of terracotta and smoked glass, and Scandinavian-style pinewood. A new critical care unit is on the way.

That Circle has come this far in just 27 months makes it all the more commendable. And it has done so while reducing its capital debts, and turning a £10million-a-year deficit into a predicted £2million profit this year — a figure expected to soar to £60 million by the end of their tenure.

Given that the NHS is expected to face a £30 billion shortfall by 2020, we might even think it is little short of miraculous.

When I asked Steve Melton, the company’s CEO, how it was done, the word most frequently on this 52-year-old former Argos, Faberge and Unilever executive’s lips was ‘empowerment’.

It was, he said, all about stripping away layer upon layer of management and red-tape that strangulates other NHS hospitals, and handing power back to the people who really understand the needs of the infirm: the frontline staff.

The average hospital trust is governed by a board of ten to 15 members, perhaps two of whom will be doctors or nurses — and often not practising. Between them and the clinical director are multiple tiers of middle-management through which front-line concerns and ideas permeate painfully slowly, if at all.

By contrast, 11 of the 15-strong board at Hinchingbrooke Hospital are practising clinicians, and there are no clipboard-wielding bureaucrats. 

In early 2012, when Circle — a John Lewis-style partnership of stakeholder workers and private investors — took the reins, it invited the 1,700 workforce to a half-day meeting and asked them to map out the hospital’s future.

Some 500 were too apathetic or sceptical about the company’s motives to attend. The majority showed up, however, and their goals, set out in a booklet handed to each staff member (or ‘partner’ as Circle prefers to describe them) now underpin the hospital’s ethos.

They include taking a pride in their work, striving to be the best, making the hospital safer and healthier, forging closer ties with the community they serve, and the ‘six Cs’: care, compassion, competence, communication, courage and commitment.

The manifesto also makes it the duty of every employee to call a halt to any procedure immediately and raise the alarm if he notices something awry.

Devised by Toyota workers to prevent faulty cars from leaving the production line, this measure, known as ‘stop the line’, has already prevented a repeat of the surgical instrument fiasco.

As a patient was about to be stitched, a theatre nurse spotted that a swab was missing and stopped the operation — an act that would have incurred the consultant’s wrath under the old regime. It was duly found inside the open wound.

Other buzz-phrases have become the norm among Hinchingbrooke’s evangelical staff. When someone wants to rectify some problem, or improve efficiency, they might ‘swarm’ it by brainstorming with colleagues, or call an impromptu group ‘huddle’.

If all this creates a rather cultish ambience, it is plainly working. In the well-equipped maternity unit, the standard induction drug, prostaglandin, costing £27.95 per dose, is seldom used these days.

Instead, women are offered reflexology, aromatherapy and acupressure to speed up difficult labours — a gentler New Age method devised by one of the midwives.

In orthopaedics, I met Mr Arpit Patel, who came to Hinchingbrooke as a junior doctor in 1997, and now doubles as a consultant surgeon and hospital board member.

Before Circle, he said, the hospital was riven with divisions: ‘We thought the managers were all useless, and they thought we doctors weren’t working hard enough.’

At first, he was among the sceptics where Circle was concerned. But he decided to try the business-style methods the company was proposing.

By listening to his own staff and adopting their simple suggestions to get patients on and off the operating table quicker, he can now perform four operations a day, not three, and sometimes hits six.

‘What people don’t realise is that if I do three knees, the hospital makes about £800; but if I do just one more, that increases to £3,000, and if I do five we make £6,000 or £7,000. That is because staff costs stay the same and my operating time doesn’t change.

‘The whole staff feel they can really do things now. The NHS could learn tremendously from Circle’s approach to management.’

The mood was similarly buoyant in A&E, where staff have opted to wear theatre ‘scrubs’ rather than nursing uniforms, and name-tags so patients can identify them.

They also use a colour-coded computer system (similar to that used to keep the tills working at Argos) to flag up outpatients who are waiting too long.

In the kitchen, head-chef Lisa Normanton, 46, cooks fresh, locally-sourced food instead of standard-issue frozen supplies, and takes inspiration from the company’s Michelin-starred head chef Andreas Wingert.

The restaurant-standard meals not only make patients happier. As ever with Circle, there is a financial benefit, too. Though they are more expensive — £10 a day as opposed to £7 — well-nourished patients tend to recover quicker and go home sooner.

Politicians on all sides are surprisingly reluctant to claim credit for Hitchingbrooke’s success. In a risible volte-face, Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham, who sanctioned the franchise during the last Labour government, now criticises it.

Why? Because the very idea that public services might operate more efficiently under private stewardship is anathema to Ed Miliband.

As for the Tories, who rubber-stamped the deal, they are under orders from their Australian election strategist, Lynton Crosby, to avoid at all costs the sensitive NHS debate and concentrate on the economy.

Were David Cameron to take a bold step and champion the wide-scale franchising of our failing hospitals, however, it could be a gamble worth taking —  revitalising, and perhaps even saving, the National Health Service

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 and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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