Thursday, October 23, 2014


UK: Rochdale taxi firm offers white drivers on request

Minicab customers in the town caught up in Britain’s biggest grooming scandal are being offered white drivers on request, it has emerged.

Residents in Heywood in the Greater Manchester borough of Rochdale have been offered the service after two local drivers of Pakistani origin were jailed for their part in the rape and trafficking of young white girls.

Stephen Campbell, the manager of Car 2000, which took over Eagle Taxis, a firm that employed drivers at the heart of the scandal, said that a consequence of the affair was that many white customers ask for white drivers – or “local” drivers, as they usually describe them.

“We have had quite a lot of customers requesting what they call a ‘local’ driver. A bit insane if you consider that most of the [Asian] lads were born in Rochdale,” he told The Guardian.

“But it’s a business and we have got a duty to do what the customer asks us to. I don’t think we can discriminate against the customer in the same way. It is a business at the end of the day. We have a large bank loan to pay back,” he said.

If he could, Campbell said, he would persuade people to take any driver. “The Asian drivers are harder working, they do what they are asked and they don’t complain about it. They have a much better work ethic. If the public could actually see these [Asian] people close up and see what they are about, I don’t think they would be asking for white drivers.”

The news emerged as MPs in areas where Asian grooming gangs have operated have expressed concern about racial tensions, which have yet to subside some six years after the scandals first emerged.

Heywood was at the centre of the Rochdale scandal after a sex trafficking gang of men of mainly Pakistani origin were found to have preyed on at least 47 girls, all of whom were white. Two drivers from the now defunct local firm of Eagle Taxis were among nine Asian men jailed for their involvement.

Ukip ran a byelection campaign in Heywood and Middleton earlier this month focusing on the issues of child grooming and immigration and came within 617 votes of overturning a near 16,000 Labour majority.

Simon Danczuk, the MP for Rochdale, said: “This is extremely worrying and a stark reminder of the impact that grooming scandals have had on northern towns. This will not be a problem exclusive to our borough, I’m sure.”

The “white drivers on request” policy does not breach the minicab firm’s license and it can continue with the policy, a spokesman for the council said. Mark Widdup, the director of economy and environment at Rochdale borough council, said: “This is first the council has heard of this company’s policy. However, this appears to be a decision made by the company and there is currently nothing in the conditions of their license which state that they cannot operate such a policy, just as some firms choose to offer customers only female drivers.”

Campbell, 34, said his father James bought into the Heywood firm in 2011. A few months later, they realised that Car 2000 was at the centre of a major scandal as it emerged that drivers from Eagle Taxis were embroiled in grooming allegations. Mohammed Amin, 45, of Falinge, a driver for 14 years who was known as “Car Zero”, was convicted of sexual assault and received a five-year jail term.

Abdul Aziz, 41, a married father-of-three from Rochdale who was also a driver, was convicted of trafficking for sexual exploitation, received a nine-year sentence. They were two of nine men initially convicted in a complex trial.

SOURCE





Politically Correct Insanity

It is my contention that political correctness has so deeply infiltrated American society that it has affected our approach to defending ourselves against Islamic terrorism, deadly epidemics and even presidential assassins.

In the past, AIDS, which, in spite of the massive publicity campaign waged by the homosexual community, was never a great threat to heterosexuals – unless, of course, they were the really cheap and stupid drug addicts who shared hypodermic needles – nobody in public life ever had the guts to suggest that those with the disease be quarantined.

Today, because those spreading Ebola are West Africans, nobody has the gumption to suggest curtailing flights from that part of the world to America, lest we be accused of being a nation of racists. At the same time, if the epidemic was centered in Scandinavia and we stopped all incoming flights from Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen, I very much doubt if we would be condemned for practicing blondophobia.

The other major export from that particularly noxious part of the world is Islamic terrorism. Again, we are so frightened of appearances when it comes to Arabs and Muslims that we refuse to engage in racial profiling (which is otherwise known as being rational in a world in which 90% of the violence is committed by young males named Mohammad who look a great deal like Osama bin Laden) or to even risk referring to “Islamic terrorism” as such, preferring to pass it off as “workplace violence.”

That brings us to Omar Gonzalez, who hopped the Pennsylvania Avenue fence and made it all the way into the White House while carrying a knife before being brought down and disarmed. Although as my friend Ron Kessler has made clear in his books about the Secret Service, there has been a recent history of dangerous cost-cutting by a number of Service chiefs, I have my own theory as to the reason security broke down so dramatically in this case. I believe the agents spotted a Hispanic racing across the White House lawn, and instead of expecting commendations for shooting him, they envisioned being brought up before a congressional committee of political opportunists and facing trumped-up charges for over-reacting to a potential threat.

Speaking of Ron Kessler, in his latest book, “The First Family Detail,” he reports that even though they both insist they’re conservative cost-cutters and always having the American taxpayer foremost in mind, whenever Ted Cruz or Rand Paul shows up for an interview at Fox, they are invariably accompanied by an entourage of five or six aides, although the customary number of toadies, even when it comes to liberal lawmakers, is no more than two.

That is why I have come to believe that no matter how much Republicans may talk about cutting the size and cost of the federal government, they’re really only talking about when the Democrats are in charge. Besides, it goes entirely against human nature – and, all evidence to the contrary, politicians are human beings – for any politician to ever crave less power or fewer fawning acolytes on the payroll than his or her predecessor.

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, the Government Accountability Institute recently disclosed that over the past two years Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of the daily intelligence briefings. But that didn’t stop him from blaming Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for his being left in the dark about the imminent threat from ISIL.

Not that long ago, Obama had labeled the cutthroats a bunch of nobodies who thought that if they donned the uniforms of the L.A. Lakers, it would turn them into the Lakers when, as Obama cockily assured us, they were no more than a junior varsity squad. As it turned out, they proved that they could teach Kobe Bryant and the rest of the Lakers a little something about playing offense. Of course it always helps when the other team – in this case the very Iraqi military that we had spent years and a bloody fortune training and arming – ran off the court while ripping off their uniforms.

The fact that Obama paid absolutely no attention to the facts supplied on a daily basis by U.S. Intelligence was typical of His Arrogance, and it certainly didn’t prevent him from casting Mr. Clapper in the role of every lazy student’s favorite scapegoat, the dog with an insatiable appetite for homework.

SOURCE






As His Wife Delivers Their Baby, LGBT Group Smears This Pro-Marriage Professor as International Criminal

Having a baby is supposed to be one of the happiest moments of your life. But for Bobby Lopez, an unusual figure in the marriage debate, it was a day overshadowed by fear.

His wife was in labor with their second child when Lopez received hateful phone calls and emails from LGBT rights activists.

Why?  Because two days prior, the Human Rights Campaign—a political action group whose mission is to “achieve equality” for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans—put out its latest blast email in a campaign called “The Export of Hate.”

Its main “exporter” that day: Robert “Bobby” Oscar Lopez.

Lopez, openly bisexual but married, works as an English professor at California State University-Northridge. He incurred HRC’s wrath because of his outspoken view that children do better when raised by a mother and father than they do when raised by parents of the same sex.

Lopez, 43, was raised in a household by two mothers. He drew public attention in 2012 after penning an account of that experience in an article for Public Discourse titled “Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Children’s View.”

Overall, “children of same-sex couples have a tough road ahead of them,” Lopez argued, writing:

"When your home life is so drastically different from everyone around you, in a fundamental way striking at basic physical relations, you grow up weird. I have no mental health disorders or biological conditions. I just grew up in a house so unusual that I was destined to exist as a social outcast."

Ever since Lopez went public with his story, left-leaning gay rights groups such as HRC and GLAAD, an organization that calls itself “the voice for LGBT equality,” have targeted Lopez as an “extremist.”

They have provoked those on their mailing lists to write and call his family and university, attempted to blacklist him with the media and academia, and put in public records requests to acquire his contact information.

“It was an onslaught from that point forward,” Lopez recalls in an interview with The Daily Signal.

Already effectively shunned by many student groups, other organizations and media outlets in the U.S., Lopez still speaks regularly wherever he can, including foreign venues, about three core beliefs:

All children have the right to be born free, not bought or sold.

All children have the right to a mom and a dad.

All children have the right to connect with their origins.

Having grown up in a same-sex household, Lopez says he is particularly qualified to speak on these subjects.  “This debate is ultimately about me and people like me,” he says. “If anyone has a right to weigh in on this with full academic freedom and freedom of speech, it’s me.”

And being bisexual, Lopez considers himself a member of the LGBT community.  In explaining his sexuality, which he admits is unconventional, Lopez told The Daily Signal:

"I am bisexual. I have never been ex-gay and have never tried to hide that I’m gay. I just happen to be in a relationship with a woman and I’m raising my child with her."

Lopez is fluent in seven languages, boosting his ability to promote his message internationally. He says he never intended to go international, but had no choice when HRC, GLAAD and other groups blacklisted him.

Now, HRC has responded by labeling him an “Exporter of Hate.” The attack began in September, when the organization published a hit list of “American extremists who are working tirelessly to undercut LGBT people around the world at every turn.”

Featuring FBI-style sketches of faces and videos of advocates of marriage as the union of a man and a woman—including Scott Lively, Sharon Slater and Peter LaBarbera—the campaign likens Lopez and others to international criminals.

In the campaign, Lopez says, HRC falsely claims he spoke for the National Organization for Marriage and was part of the World Congress of Families, two groups that oppose the redefinition of marriage.  “These are blatant lies,” he says.

On Oct. 6, days before his wife went into labor, HRC blasted out an email specifically targeting the professor, calling him a “rising star on the international anti-LGBT scene.” Sent to the group’s 1.5 million claimed members and supporters, the email urged them to “expose” Lopez as an “exporter of hate.”

In some versions of the email, which recipients in turn forwarded to others, the subject line read: “‘Same-sex parenting flagrantly violates children’s rights…it is abuse. Face it.’- Robert Oscar Lopez, Associate Professor, Cal State-Northridge.”

HRC’s email blast happened to coincide with the birth of Lopez’s second child.  “I actually received the worst hate mail and voice messages just when the delivery was happening,” Lopez says in a phone interview.

One YouTube user published contact information in a comment section. Four weeks later, HRC had not removed it.

Officials at California State University-Northridge received emails demanding that they take action against the professor. Some of his students told him the day of HRC’s blast email that they felt “tricked” because Lopez didn’t disclose he was “anti-gay.”

“I have people calling me s—bag at my job, on my work line,” Lopez says.  At work, he fears for his job. At home, he fears for his life.

“It’s endangering me and my family,” Lopez says of the HRC campaign. “I don’t have a lot of money, I’m not rich, and I don’t have a big organization with tons of money that can help me and support me.” He adds:

"Being completely isolated like this, and then having to worry every time I leave my home—and my wife is there with the newborn—and not knowing whether I’m going to get killed, it’s really hard."

HRC did not respond to The Daily Signal’s multiple requests for comment about the campaign, and to explain why—four weeks later—the organization has not removed Lopez’s contact information from the comment section accompanying its video.

SOURCE






Canada raises alert after 'terror' attack

CANADA has raised its national "terrorism" alert after a soldier who was run over by a suspected jihadist died in hospital.

THE alert level was raised from low to medium after authorities said a man they believed to be "radicalised" struck two officers with his car on Monday, but authorities said the heightened alert wasn't "the result of a specific threat".

"This level means that intelligence has indicated that an individual or group within Canada or abroad has the intent and capability to commit an act of terrorism," said Jean-Christophe de Le Rue, a spokesman for the Public Safety Ministry.

The assailant in the attack was identified as 25-year-old Martin Couture-Rouleau, who was briefly detained at a Canadian airport last July when he sought to fly to Turkey, federal police said.

Police didn't have enough evidence to charge him with seeking to join a terrorist group abroad and released him.

Couture-Rouleau was fatally shot by police after he struck two soldiers with his car in a Quebec parking lot - a scenario that had been depicted only last month in IS propaganda.

At a press conference, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said the deliberate attack was "clearly linked to terrorist ideology".

"I am horrified by what took place here," he said. "This is a terrible act of violence against our country, against our military, against our values."

The attack took place as Canadian warplanes headed to bomb Islamic State militants in Iraq.

Defense Minister Rob Nicholson said the soldier's death "in a senseless act such as this only strengthens our resolve" to take on militant groups such as IS.

Couture-Rouleau smashed his car into the two soldiers in a supermarket parking lot before fleeing with police in pursuit.

He called 911 to tell emergency workers about the attack as it was happening.

Police said he then crashed his car into a roadside ditch and rolled it over. When he extricated himself from the wreckage brandishing a knife, officers shot him.

The slain soldier had been admitted in critical condition to a hospital in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, 40km southeast of Montreal.  At 53 years old, he had served most of his adult life in the military.

Officials said the injuries to the other soldier were not life-threatening.

The motive behind the attack is still being investigated.

Quebec police said Couture-Rouleau may have stalked his victims, waiting for them in his car in the parking lot for more than two hours.

They said the "terrorist thesis (was) being considered by investigators", but didn't specify any links between the suspected attacker and any outlawed groups.

Federal police, meanwhile, said the suspect "was known" to the state's anti-terrorism task force.  Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Bob Paulson said he had been identified as someone who "might commit a criminal act for terrorist purposes".  RCMP spokeswoman Martine Fontaine said his family had become concerned by recent changes in his behaviour, and reached out to authorities for help.

She said police were in touch with Couture-Rouleau's imam and other community members to try to reach out to the man.  "We worked with him, with the imam in the mosque he was attending and with police officers that are part of our community service to try and exert a positive influence over him," Fontaine told reporters.

"Many interventions with Mr Martin Rouleau were carried out to try and avoid, in vain unfortunately, the tragic events in Saint-Jean."

The Canada case carries an echo of the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby in London in May 2013.  Rigby was run over by two Muslim converts before being stabbed and hacked to death.

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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