Eric the Unread: Blair's ineffectual war on Islam

Eric the unread compares the war on Islam that Britain is supposed to be waging with the practice in an islamic country. No prizes for which one discriminates in reality. Part of this 'war on Islam' being the recent Panorama programme on the activities of the MCB and the their links to Islamofascism. Critism of Islamism being rare for the BBC, perhaps worried that they will end up like Theo van Gogh, this documentary received a condemnation from the MCB as being biased, and quoting out of context. It turns out that the BBC was completely accurate in it's quotes when put back into context, the BBC does have biases but they tend to expresed in ommision of stories rather than inaccuracies within them, and it was the MCB that was twisting the truth. Perhaps this 'war on Islam' is in fact just that we haven't completely rolled over and submitted to Islamism despite Islamists being a minority of Muslims who are themselves a very small minority in Britian.

Tim Worstall: The French Want to Leave the EU.

Or maybe not, they just want it limited so that they can take the money from it to protect their farmers without giving anything in return, such as a true free internal market for everything including captial. As this could lead to French manufacturers getting bought, which they cannot have even though they are prefectly happy to have french companies buy ones in other countries.

The Devil's Kitchen's Economic Prescription

The Devil's Kitchen on Flat tax and Citizens Basic Income tax system. this means a massive, but probably impossible under the EU, reduction in the complexity of the taxation system. Reducing the size of the state and so hte amount that we have to pay to it and therefore helping everybodies prosperity. A win win situation, but far too simple and transparent to appeal to any of the current generation of career polititions.

The Gray Monk: Permanent Archives

Is Islam able to reform?

Freedom, Democide, War

Freedom, Democide, War. An interesting site that I should have blogged before from a commenter called Alene on my post about the role of religion in genocide in the 20th century.

Yes they get good results but by God are they bored

If you want a hint at why despite the ever increasing pass rate our schools are producing less and less educated people Al Guardian has the answer.

In the spring of this year my diligent 16-year-old came back from school to tell me that she was about to start studying the Vietnam war for GCSE. "Good," I said, enthusiastically. "I've got some interesting books you could read." Her eyes widened in alarm. "I don't think I should till after the exam," she said, "because, you know that stuff you gave me to read on civil rights? Well, I did really badly on that paper in the mocks, cos my teacher said I'd put in lots of irrelevant stuff."

My daughter has learned the important lesson of today's examinees. Learn what you have to know, and not an iota beyond it. Don't pursue an interest, because a deeper understanding is not only superfluous, it is a positive disadvantage. Examination boards freely admit that people who know more than the syllabus demands find it harder to do well.

So the current school and examination system turns pupils into experts in precisely what the goverrnments wants them to know, and actively discouraged from trying anything else. In otherwords easy to be managed by our mangerial government.

How can we have ended up with such an unsatisfactory situation when we have a government that is making huge efforts to give people greater opportunities? The answer is that, in its drive to make the system more rigorous and more accountable, the government has squeezed out room for the elements that keep children involved in the process and that allow real education to take place - excitement, curiosity, discovery and responsibility.

which is exactly what you would expect when deciding what to teach is taken out of the hands of the professional teachers with a vocation for teaching their subjects and into the hands of government officials with no interest in either, but arequirement to make things easy to put into spreedsheets for soundbite friendly statistics. And what happens when you putting teaching back into the hands of teachers?

the results have been striking. Every school has seen marked improvements in behaviour, attendance, attitudes and achievement in the Opening Minds pupils, particularly among those at the top and bottom of the range. In many cases the statistics are striking: truancy halved; exclusions down by 90%; detentions down by 60%; Opening Minds children scoring 15% higher than their peers in tests.

and please note that while everybody improves it is the people at the top and bottom ends that are helped most since their needs are recognised by any haft differnet teacher as being different from the average pupil used in the government officials models and so they can tailor the teachign to their needs. So people do better when taught to their own levels, being pushed as much as their individual abilities allow and as the guardian points out most of what we know about psychology tells us that

People want to be stretched and pushed It's one of the most gratifying experiences life has to offer. It's when we are being pushed to achieve something that's just within our capabilities, but further than we have been before, that we are happiest.

In otherwords streaming, like in the grammar schools. Which also provided far better social mobility than hte current system as it allowed the many bright people from poorer backgrounds to get into schools where they would be pushed to their full potential.

placebo acts like placebo shock

The BBC has an article on Homeopathy and a study published in The Lancet which concludes that it has not greater effect than a dummy medicine, which is what it is, and is nowhere near as effective than proper treatments. Now there is a suprise, drinking water that you are told is a medicine is as effective as drinking water that you are told is water you are told is a medicine.

Mandy losing grip on world economy

Via EU-Serf a good article from the Scotsman on the EU textiles fiasco.

Due to Mandelson's muddling, millions of pounds', or euros', worth of winter clothing - sweaters, underwear, men's trousers etc - bought from Chinese manufacturers by clothes shops in the UK and Scandinavia, are locked up in container terminals. Retailers are worried that from next month there'll be the same sort of clothing shortages as were experienced during the Second World War.

All of which is directly because of the EU. Not ducking out and shifting the blame onto national governments this time by forcing them to legislate the EU's stupid laws for it via a directive, this is all the direct responcibility of the EU. So hopefully this time it will bring to peoples attention, so long as they do not rely on the BBC for news that is, what a useless organisation the EU is.The grumblings and vague loss of confidence in the EU that have mirrored its expansion are beginning to sharpen up into focused criticism. Opinion has changed about the body that, until about 20 years ago, was seen by most of Europe's opinion-formers, and its citizens in general, as being the key to a more prosperous future and probably, the next step in the development of international democracy.

But the EU's democracy hasn't developed, and the world has changed since big trading blocks seemed to be the best way to grow our economies. Satellite communications and 24-hour trading, and now the emergence of China as a major manufacturer, have blown a hole in the old arguments in favour of "Fortress Europe".

Absurdities of the current tax system

we currently have tax system that discourages people from working harder. This is the obvious conclusion that can be drawn from Stumbling and Mumbling's analysis of the current state of UK taxes, and he has numbers to back it up using data from The Department for Work and Pensions not less.

Here’s a question: Take a married couple with two children under 11 and pre-tax earnings of £200 a week. If they get a better job, raising their earnings to £300 a week, by how much does their net income rise?
...
Yes. £8.52. That’s a marginal deduction rate of 91.5 per cent.

So you do £100 of more work to recieve £8.52. Deduct the effort that was expended to get this extra £8.52 and you are making a net loss of £91.48 on your investment in extra work that could be placed elsewhere for a much greater gain. He claims that this

strongly supports the principle of a flat tax and citizen’s basic income.

I haven't read the data so I cannot confirm this despite liking flat tax and citizens basic income, but what I can say for certain is certainly supports not using the current system.

Libertarian Basics

Libertarian is by definition a broad church but this article byTech Central Station on Libertarian Basics seems to cover, well, the basics.

Expulsions illegal, UN tells Clarke

For once in a very long time I am in agreement with the Tyrant Blair and his henchthing Clarke.

Tony Blair: UK will exclude and deport non-UK citizens 'who express what the government considers to be extreme views that are in conflict with the UK's culture of tolerance'

A little broad brush, but deporting intolerant religious zealots here to destroy British Culture is a good thing. It is what government is for, protecting the society that the governed have formed.

Charles Clarke: UK will exclude or deport non-UK citizens [for]

• writing, producing, publishing or distributing material
• public speaking including preaching
• running a website
• using a position of responsibility such as teacher, community or youth leader

to express views which 'foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs; seek to provoke others to terrorist acts ... or foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK'

This is right. It is also New Labour, finally, waking up to it's responcibility to protect British society, rather than trying to destory it. This may be a case of my enemy's (Islamism) enemy (Britian) is my friend as it is highly unlikely that New Labour could continue to generate it's brand of authoritian government under the even more authoritarian, and immutable, Sharia that the Islamists want to force on us. But it is better than fawning over their every desire as happened before.

The un however is awefully upset by this sudden show of backbone by New Labour.

A senior UN representative last night threatened to cite the British government for violation of human rights over its planned deportations of alleged terrorist sympathisers.

Of course Prof Novak, we should not deport these people, after doing everything to avoid them being tortured or killed. Afterall all they want to do is destroy our society, instigate a murderous, torturing, anti-democratic regime, and are willing to kill and terrorise as many people as need be to do it. It's not like they are Gay and want to live or something. As Perry de Havilland of Samizdata points out:

If the UN says something should or should not be done, it is a safe bet that doing the opposite is most likely the correct course of action. Thus when the UN says Britain must not expel Muslim clerics who incite terrorism, clearly this is indeed the best policy.

It does not matter if a compass always points south, as long as you know that you can use it to find your way just as effectively as with one which always points north.

to Richard Younger-Ross MP

I have decided to follow Tim Worstall's advice and send a letter to my MP about Hussein Nasseri. This case makes a travasty of our asylum laws.

Dear Richard Younger-Ross,

The telegraph has brought to my attention the case of a gay man from Iran, Hussein Nasseri, refused asylum in the UK. I am not writing to ask for any aid in Mr Nasseri’s case. What you could have done for him is no longer applicable as he is dead. He killed himself in a car park in Eastbourne obviously preferring a quiet death by his own hand than a public execution in Iran.

The British Government was going to deport him to face almost certain death in Iran. Isn’t this exactly what has been made illegal under the European Human Rights Convention and our own Human Rights Act? Isn’t the exactly why the British tax payer has had to maintain people that want to destroy British society because we cannot deport them, a necessary evil simply so that cases like that of Mr Nasseri cannot happen? So why did it happen? As civilised society we have a duty to help the Mr Nasseris of this world, to give them shelter from persecution, so how could this happen, and what is Parliament going to do to stop it happening again.

Blood On Our Hands - The Persecuted Refused Asylum

A sad and moving post from the Musings from Middle England via Tim Worstall.

I wonder if Hussein Nasseri looked out on to that cold, grey Sussex sea in June 2004 as he made his way to an activity centre.
Did any of the elderly residents and holidaymakers squint at him, or even automatically smile at him in the way old people often do, as he passed them on the street?
If they did, he probably didn't notice.
He went into the activity centre car park and shot himself between the eyes.
Hussein, 26 years old, was a gay man who fled Iran and came to Britain. He had already spent three months in prison in Iran for being gay and feared execution if he was sent back.
In June 2004 the Home Office refused to grant him asylum and was going to send him back to Iran.
So he killed himself.
A private death in an Eastbourne car park was preferable to a public hanging in an Iranian square.

This man was going to be deported to face persecution, imprisonment, and probably death. He was going to be deported to a country with a truly horrifying record in ignoring the value of human life. A despotic theocracy of the lowest order. The government knew all of this. It knew that if he where sent there he would end up like the two children executed for the same ‘crime’ of love. This is exactly the type of person that the asylum is supposed to protect. And yet they did not protect him, they conspired to return him to the jaws of death.

Islamofascists can hide behind the prohibitions on deporting people to places where they could face execution, but when it comes to peaceful gays genuinely fearing for their lives suddenly this prohibition fades away as the Human Rights Industry studiously does nothing. Perhaps if this man where preaching strait-hate and trying to destroy British society and replace it with something else (possibly with better colour co-ordination) then the Human Rights Industry would take more notice. But he was not. He simply wanted to live. But the British government took that option away so he was left only with the choice of dieing in a public square in Iran or dieing in his own time in a car park in Eastbourne.

Religious fanatic urges followers to terrorism

The religious fanatic in this case is not an Islamist, but Christian fundementalist Pat Robertson who has called on the USA to assasinate the democratically elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez.

Speaking on his own channel, the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson said President Chávez should be targeted because he was a "terrific danger" whose country, a big supplier of oil to the US, was "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Islamic extremism all over the country".

Chávez was democratically elected in free elections. The Venezuelan people have determined to try his polices, polices which will probably fail his country, but his country cannot be called sovereign if it is not allowed to try them.

EU fraud, and it's results

One of the common frauds commited by some MEP's is a travel expensies fiddle. All travel costs for flights are reimbursed as if the flight was on a regular route with a national airline. If they choose to go by one of the cheap no frills airlines the cost difference is substantial and goes strait into the pocket, and is completely impossible to find out about as MEP's do not have to submit receipts with there expenses claims. So the EU's recent 'delayed boarding' regulations can be seen as a way of countering this, in a typically EU way, by forcing the cheap airlines out of business with ridiculously large compensation requirements for delayed flights. Such as

a family of five that paid a total of €168 ($204) for their flight but were asking for compensation of €1,980 following a cancellation due to weather. In another case a woman who paid €46 for her flight was asking for €400.

All perfectly acceptable claims under the denied boarding regulations. The result of passengers being able to claim back many times the amount they paid for their ticket if their flights are delayed will inevitably mean that there is going to be more preasure on pilots to take off on time, even if they think there could be problems with their aircraft. Bluemerle in the comments section of the EU Referendum blog found similarities between this an dwhat has happened before:

This is interesting because something similar was happening in British shipping in the 70s and 80s.

My husband, who was master of cargo ships was often ordered to put to sea with the hatches open to save time and money for the ship owners. He refused and was threatened with dismissal.

We all remember what happened to the Herald of Free Enterprise, not quite the same I agree, but no doubt it was done for the same reasons.

Flying irrespective of safety, for fear of exorbitant compensation claims is apparently happening already,

However, the safety issue has re-emerged this week, with The Telegraph reporting that pilots are speaking out about the commercial pressures they are under to fly even when their planes have technical faults.

It has not escaped notice either that there have been three major air crashes this month and while last year was declared the safest in history for air travel, when there were 428 fatalities; already this year more than 550 people have died in commercial flights. In the past month, three fatal crashes - in Venezuela, Greece and Italy - have resulted in 297 deaths.

Now, it seems, Belgian pilots are claiming that the financial pressures placed on pilots to take off, even in planes with minor technical malfunctions, have increased significantly as a result of the EU’s compensation requirements.

So the EU has taken the safest transportation method in the world and through over regulation made it far less safe.

Norman Tebit on The Today programme

Old Norman created the famous 'cricket test' as a way of pointing out the problems of multiculturalism. Turns out he was correct, multiculturalism is a problem and you cannot have two cultures co-existing within the same country as these two distinct cultures will also be two distinct societies which inevitably come into conflict. If people decide to come here to live then they have already decided that this county offers them something that the one they left does not, probably work. It is therefore logical that they should integrate with the native society so they can get the most of the benefits that our society offers, which is what brought them here in the first place.

He also mentioned that Islamist societies trapped under immutable Sharia have not progressed in 'many years', which then became '500 years' in the news summary after he spoke. Well whichever number you take he was correct again. Since the end of the Islamic Renaissance, a bit over 500 years ago, there has been no major discoveries coming out of the Islamic world. Certainly nothing to compare with the period of great scientific and artistic acheivement that they produced at their height. It should also be noted that the end of the peroid of Islamic greatness corresponded exactly with an upsurge in practice of strict religion whereas before that point they had been rather lax in their adherence to Sharia which itself was extremely liberal compared to, say, Catholic teachings of the dark ages.

He may not have offered the correct solutions, become a less tolerant society to appease Islamist sensibilities, but his view of the problem was quite correct. Despite saying the truth he will be savaged by the Multicult for telling the truth about the current state of Islam, so long as he doesn't end up like Theo van Goegh first that is.

The Times on why Islamofascist clerics where alowed to stays so long

Camilla Cavendish writing in The Times about why the Islamofascist clerics where allowed to stay in Britian so long. She points the finger mainly at the security services

The intelligence services bear considerable responsibility for letting in many of the extremists who have done so much damage in this country since the early 1990s and for doing so little to curtail their activities. It is distinctly ironic that those whose complacency helped to create the problem are now overreacting by pressing for unnecessarily draconian powers.

The intelegence services apparently believed that they could use these clerics as tools to spy on their fanatical flocks and gain an insider view of Islamist terrorism. Hence making them too useful to deport.

Perhaps the inteligence services thought that these people, wanted in other countries for their activities, would be greatful to Britain for not handing them over to face Sharia justice. Perhaps the inteligence services where thinking that they would be greatful for the free money that they where able scrounge off of us natives. In the even they where neither, and simply took are money while scheming to kill us and destroy the society that they where sponging off.

She concludes that:

Mr Blair will have to resist the temptation to get tough where it is easiest for him to do so, by chalking up a bevy of new offences when he has already enacted three anti-terrorism laws since 2000. And he must get toughest where he is weakest. To deport the ten suspects he will eventually have to sacrifice his Human Rights Act: he will not get round the European Convention either by derogating or by waving memos of understanding at judges who will never believe that Algeria has thrown away its thumbscrews.

Will he do this. I dought it. It is a racing certainty that there will be yet more laws that clamp down on the civil liberties of Britons while allowing the Islamists free reign so as not to interfere with their human rights.

What it means to be tolerant

EU-Serf has posted a piece on Once More on the Multicult and what it means to be BritishOne of the comments by Rob Read seems particualy good.

"Tolerance is an mutual agreement between two parties that certain conduct is private."

Microsoft continues as always

Embrase, Extend, Extinguish has long been one of Microsoft's operating principles and it now appears that Microsoft are extending their clammy embrase to RSS the synication system used by many weblogs (blogger uses Atom, many just to be difficult).

In a move likely to unsettle many outside Microsoft, the company said it is actively exploring the right name to use for RSS feeds, with the current working term being "web feeds". The name "web feeds" is currently used to describe initial support for the discovery and reading of RSS feeds in the IE 7.0 Beta 1, which was released this summer. Microsoft is also adding its own technology to RSS, according to reports.

They are also building RSS (or WebFeeds as they like to call them) directly into the OS rather than just the browser.

Now what does this remind me of, oh yes. When Microsoft Embrased and extended HTML (but found it rather hard to extinguish, even if their lack of standards compliance haughts us to this day) and their exploitation of their monopoly position to drive Netscape out of business. Have they learned nothing? By hooking IE deep into the system they opened up a whole new vista of viral possibilities including the worms and mass mailers that have become so endemic. I wonder how long after the release of Vista we will see the first viral podcast and malware agrigators?

Forecast Cloudy for Windows Vista

Wired news looks at the next version of Windows and is not impressed.

UK ID scheme rides again, as biggest ID fraud of them all

The Register comprehensively debunks the arguements for ID cards. Go and read it.

Religion and death

the Herero and Nama peoples of Southwest Africa	1904–1907	in current-day Namibia	75000	ethnic/territorial
Tutsis and moderate Hutus,	April 1994	Rwanda	937,000	ethnic
Sudan	1983 - present	Sudan	2000000	ethnic
Kurdish populations	1986-88	Iraq	182,000	religious/ethnic
Assyrians	1914–1923	Turkey	500,000 to 750,000	religious/ethnic
Armenians	1915-1917	Turkey	600,000 to 1.5 million	religious/ethnic
Pontian Greeks	1914–1923	Turkey	300,000 to 600,000	religious/ethnic
Bosnian Muslims	1992–1995	Bosnia	8,000	religious/ethnic
Serbs, Jews and Gypsies	1941 - 1945	Croatia	80,000 to 100,000	religious
Jews, Roma, Slavs, homosexuals, communists	1933–1945	Germany	11 million	territorial/ethnic/religious
Ukrainians	1932–1933	USSR	6,000,000 to 10,000,000	communism
Cambodians ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese or Sino-Khmers, ethnic Chams, ethnic Thais, Buddhist monks, secular intellectuals	1975–1979	Cambodia	1.7 million	ethnic/communism
tibetians	1950s and 1960s	Tibet	400,000	communism
Degar	1973 - Present	Vietnam	2 to 2.5 million	ethinc/communism
Hindus	1947	India (partition)	5 million	religious
Sikh	1919	Amritsar (India)	400	religious/territorial
Hindus	1989 - present	Kashmir	45,000+	religous/territorial
Bangladeshis	1971	Bangladesh	3 million	territorial
chinese	1959 - 1961	China	15 to 30 million	political/communism

totals

communism	25,100,000
ethnic	19,302,000
religion	17,715,400
territorial	14,120,400

I have placed the Holocaust as having a religious element not becuase it was aimed at the Jews but because Nazism was not an atheist society. There was a state religion deliberately built around the Aryan race, going so far as to generate it's own rituals for marrage.

I have not put the deaths of the Great Leap Forward under a religious category as at that time the personality cult that Mao Tse-Tung formed around himself had not yet fully formed. During the Cultural Revolution this personality cult can hardly be classified as anything other than a, short lived, state religion. However I have no figures for the deaths during that time so I could not include it.

Communism was the most deadly ideology of the 20 century in terms of genocide. After that is ethnic strife. Third is religion with a mere 17 million (mainly due to the state religion of the Nazis) despite this often being called a secular century. Finally comes territorial expantion, and a desire to wipe out any inhabitants in order to gain the maximum new space and start with a clean slate.

It should be noted that the number killed by basically liberal secular states is 400 at Amritsar, which pales in comparison to what happens when you unlease totalitarianism or religion on a people. The numbers may show religion and communism in a better light if the 19th century are included as there where many more deaths from secular liberal states during this time as they carved out their empires and the communist states where not formed until the early 20th century.

If you look at the number of times a particular cause is implicated teh number one is ethinic strife. Number two is religion, with territorial expanision and communism in third and forth place. So communism may not have caused many but the ones it did where big. Religion may have been at the root on lots of massacares, but they tended to be of more limited scope.

Data from Wikipedia

Software Patents, and why I hate them

In an article from The independent on Apple's iPod it appears that they are having problems with patents. The iPod was released in 2001, not the first digital player but the one that quickly gained a substantial market share because of it's asthetics, simplisity, and user interface. In 2002, one year after the iPod's release, Microsoft files and gaines a patent on the interface used by the iPod. Yes they where given a patent on something in an already shipping product, a product not made by them, nor invented by them. Perhaps the patent office is taking a novel the meaning of the word 'invent', to be more like 'discover', or possibly 'have a look at what other people have done'.

Do we need more religion? No

Recently there have been some calls for a revival in Christianity in order to face the challenge of Islamism. Obviously going for the take a fanatical cult to beat a fanatical cult approach. Pub Philosopher asks if a Christian rival is a good idea. His conclusion is not it is not, nor even particually British. His review through history points out a few nice examples to back up his claim, such as during the peak of British supremicy we where also less religious than some might claim, and also less than any of our rivals. The more telling one is the story of Muslim Arab civilisation which after centuries as a centre of scientific learning started to decay, and was accelerated by their taking up more fundimentalist forms of Islam in an attempt to retrieve their glory days:

There is an interesting parallel with medieval Islam here. As Bernard Lewis points out in his excellent book "What Went Wrong?" , Islamic fundamentalism began to reassert itself in the later middle ages, after the Arabs began to lose wars, first to their Iranian and Berber vassals and later, to Turkish and Mongol invaders from central Asia. Religious conservatives explained these defeats as punishment for abandoning traditional Islam. As a result, the Muslim world retreated from modernity and abandoned its pursuit of scientific knowledge. Thus began Islam's decline into the medieval ignorance and superstition that still holds it back today.

A reassertion of religion as a way of revitalising society and recapturing the glories of the past did not work for the Arabs. It is unlikely to work for us either, for the simple reason that our glorious past wasn't as religious as we think.

Anywhere throughout history if you look to the most advanced and powerful civilisation in a region you will almost always find it to be the most liberal. With out liberty people are unable to pursue their dreams, which is what generates the artistic abundance that marks out a great civilisation, and spurs on the technological innovation that creates a powerful one.

Islamofascism in China

Talking Hoarsely on Islamofascism in China. This is one case where I wish both systems fould lose. However the Chinese "Communists" might be a little less threatening as at least they don't want to grow their empire to cover the entire globe.

Islamofascist cleric banned from Britain

It looks like Omar Bakri Mohammed is going to have to find some other method of getting money rather than taking benefits in Britain as Bakri has been banned from Britain. It appears that Charles Clarke found out that he did not need extra powers, which would doughtless destroyed yet more civil liberties of British Citizens, in order to exclude him. He used instead the powers that he already has to excluded Mr Bakri "on the grounds that his presence is not conducive to the public good", rather an understatement or a guy that wants to destroy the British way of life and turn this country into yet another thrid world Sharia hell hole. According to Al Guardian's report

The Conservative home affairs spokesman, David Davis, said the "whole country" would welcome the decision to ban Mr Bakri from returning to Britain.

"We have been urging the home secretary to use the powers available to him to exclude or deport non-UK citizens whose presence is not conducive to the public good, and we are glad that he has done so," Mr Davis added.

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "Omar Bakri is unlikely to be missed by the vast majority of British Muslims. With his often very offensive remarks, he has contributed towards the demonisation of British Muslims."

Clarke used these powers that the Home Secretary, whether Charles Clarke or David Blunkett before him, have always had. This is exactly what should have been done four years ago rather than trashing our liberties and destroying Habeas Corpus. There was no need to, they could and should have simply deported the Belmash 10 rather than undermining centuries of legal traditions, and then extending these new powers to British citizens as well. Memoranda of Understanding could have been formulated back then just as easily as they could now, and probably more easily as there would not have been the backdrop of the Iraq War poisoning relationships between the British Government and the governments of the various countries these creeps are wanted in.

Quite frankly even the Memorandum, while a good thing to have, is not needed. France and Sweden both have thrown out Islamist extremists without them and have had no problems from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Nuclear Fusion: An Introduction

A good, and relatively simple, introduction to nuclear fusion

Ashley Mote MEP, The Benefits of EU Membership

Ashley Mote MEP rips into his paymasters, some great insites into the way the EU works, and it's democratic accoutablility

"The European Parliament sits below this vast superstructure, even less of an obstacle to manipulative bureaucrats. It may be the EU’s only elected institution, but it is nothing more than an elaborate and expensive fig-leaf, designed to create an illusion of accountable democracy. A condescending pat on the head for voters held in contempt."

This is because

The parliament can neither initiate nor repeal legislation. It has direct control over neither the collection nor allocation of public funds. The most it can do is make proposals to the commission and try to amend legislation put before it. Usually that just means slowing it down. Anything rejected will return in a slightly different form later.

Despite being and MEP, or perhaps because of the grandstand view that this gives him, his views on the motivations of his fellow MEP's are not exactly kind

So if the parliament is a charade, why is it so well attended? In a word - money. If an MEP fails to push his electronic buttons during more than 50% of the votes, his allowances are cut. No wonder MEPs have been described as little more than a highly paid monkeys pressing buttons for bananas.

In one-hour sessions, which always precede lunch, hundreds of votes are taken at breakneck speed on long lists of resolutions and amendments. The purpose is to give democratic legitimacy to what passes for law in the European Union. Voting is so fast MEPs read the papers next day to understand what they decided, and to find out how the commission is interpreting the results.

He then goes on to talk a little about the differences between European and British culture, and the respective repect for the rule of law

In the past, the British generally upheld and respected the rule of law, at least in part because we knew we could change it at any time. With very few exceptions, a new government could repeal or amend any UK law immediately it took office.

But in the EU, and many continental countries, there is much less respect for the law because it can be difficult to change. Civil servants are in control, and they hate change. Little wonder, then, that ordinary people on the continent tend to ignore laws they don’t like, rather than seek change.

Naziphobia On The Rise, Says Report

: some briliant satire

Al Qaeda and the Guardian

The Guardian has been at it again, promoting Islamofascists and not disclosing that they are Islamofascists. You would have thought that they would have learned after the Dilpazier Aslam affair, but no as Harry's Place reports Guardian now has a column by an Al Qaeda sympathiser. Do they really hate Britian so much that they think Al Qaeda would be a better alternative? Or are they just utterly incompetent? Normally I would go with incompetence, but the evidence is shifting more towards the more sinister option.

As always with Harry's Place read the comments.

New Labour to mount Council Tax raid

There is an old saying 'Don't believe anything until it has been officially denied', this is particually true under the pathological liars of New Labour. So when they deny that they are going to use council tax reforms to mount a smash and grab raid on Middle England you know that this is exactly there plan.

Conservative shadow local government secretary Caroline Spelman said the document provided new evidence of plans to increase taxes purely because the value of people's home had increased since the 1990s.

"This official document exposes the truth that higher bands are on the way, millions of homes could move up two bands, and exemptions and discounts will be slashed," she said.

"This is another smash and grab raid on the savings of middle England - pension funds were first, your home is next."

Minister defends drink proposals

Minister defends drink proposals, and quite right too. This is one of the few liberal bits of legislation ever instigated by New Labour. It certainly does not make up for the rafts of authoritarism that they have also pushed through, and probably was only ever a cheap stunt to help htem in the election. But it is a, very small, step towards the right direction. It is being opposed by Judges on the grounds that drink is implicated in many of hte violent crimes that come before them, and in their views':
more drinking time = more drinking = more crime
However they leave out a vital variable in this equation, money. Most people live on salaries that make unlimited drinking impossible (well Judges might not). They can only drink as much as they afford, which sets an upper limit on the amount that can be consumed in a single night. With this bit of knowledge that there is an upper limit to the amount that can be consumed the equation changes to:
Same drinking in more time = less drunkeness = less crime
Scotland for example liberalised it's drinking laws 30 years ago and certainly is not any more roudy in the evening that England, they maybe wanting to tighten up the licencing laws now but this will only actually bring everything into equality with the laws proposed in this Bill.

Muslims 'want prayers in English'

Showing the difference between the majority of Muslims and the minority of Islamists the majority of Muslims want prayers in English.

He [Dr Abduljalil Sajid, chair of the Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony] said British Muslims needed "home grown imams" who "can be the real leaders of the community not just simply preachers."

Which should hopefully help to break down the Islamic colonies that make

54% [of the national population] think "parts of the country don't feel like Britain any more because of immigration".

Daniel Finkelstein Times Online

Daniel Finkelstein in The Times:

"The first bomb attack on the World Trade Centre was in 1993. Soon after 9/11 the Government and the police began warning that a terrorist attack on British soil was inevitable. It’s years since our capital city first acquired the nickname Londonistan, because of our liberal tolerance of Islamic fanatics with terrorist inclinations.

In other words, everything we now regard as requiring immediate legislation we have known for a long, long time. How can passing laws to deal with the terrorist threat have become an emergency? It’s a mystery."

Italy wonders if it is time to cut and run

Via Samizdata and the Adam Smith Institute Italy could destroy the Euro, just as it destroyed the ERM (much to Britians benefit as it turned out), and destroyed the nineteenth century equivalent of the Euro (which Britian declined to join).

While detailed consideration of these arguments is probably premature, the practical implication is clear: If the possibility of an Italian withdrawal were ever taken seriously by the markets, foreign holders of Italy’s € 1.5 trillion public debt would face enormous losses, big enough to endanger the solvency of many non-Italian banks. In other words, the Italian Government is now in a position to kill the euro and wreck the European banking system merely by threatening to withdraw.

The reason that it might is exactly the same as in the two times that it did destroy European monitary union, the policies are crippling the Italian economy. The EU will claim that the treaties are binding and there is no way out, but it is wrong. As a soveriegn country Italy has every right to create a new currency and rewrite all of its old debts in this new currency

Hal Scott, of Harvard Law School, and Charles Proctor, a solicitor at Nabarro Nathanson and author of a new chapter on withdrawal from the eurozone in the sixth edition of Mann on the Legal Aspect of Money, a book described by central bankers as “the Bible” of international monetary law. Unfortunately for the ECB, in its role as the guardian of the European banking system, both these authorities agree on two points: first, that despite the prohibitions in EU treaties, the Italian Government would have the legal ability to recreate its own currency, although withdrawal would, of course, entail big financial and economic risks; secondly, that the Government would be entitled to rewrite Italian financial contracts, including its own bond obligation, into new lire — and that investors who claimed to be defrauded by such a “redenomination” could not expect support from British or American courts.

This might turn many banks insolvent and send massive shockwaves through the Eurozone creating an enourmous financial crisis but Italy has every right to do this if it chooses. That is the point of it's being sovereign, it can start whatever action it wants even if it might not be able to survive the repercusions.

EU taxation

VAT is an EU tax, and the EU's main finding stream. We have to pay it because it was imposed by the EU. The minimum tax levels are set by the EU. And like most things EU it is massively over complicated and riddled with endemic fraud. We are not talking small frauds either the scale is so large that it can change reported trade flows by billions of pounds, the entire 15% increase in trade for may between the UK and non-EU countries is thought to mainly consist of VAT fraud. Samizdata has a post about the correct attitude to VAT


When will we finally get out of the antidemocratic fraud magnet that is the EU?

The Times Online guest contributors Opinion

The Times Online guest contributors Opinion

Secret terror courts considered

Hat tip to The Englishman's Castle for this one New Labour is considering secret terror courts. Looks like they really are dusting off all of the authoritarian wet dreams. As I recall the last time that special courts like this where used, outside of wartime, was the hated Star Chamber under Henry VII with it's excesses being one of the sparks for the English Civil war and the eventual execution of the King (to whom the Star Chamber reported). But even in that the precedings where public, and Habeas Corpus ruled.

One possible model for the pre-trial hearings could be the Special Immigrations Appeals Tribunal, which sits in secret and keeps the details of charges from those facing them.

Defendants are represented by special advocates, who have access to the evidence but do not brief their 'clients' on the details.

And where ruled illegal last year. But this covers everybody so in the Multicultist view point of New Labour it must be OK, seeming to forget that it was that these where a travesty of British justice that made them illegal, not just the descrimination between British Citizens and immigrants.

With the view that you shouldn't believe anything until it has been officially denied

"There is no question of secret trials, there is no question of jury less trials, there is no question of any sort of internment," said Lord Falconer.

He then goes on to cntradict everything in that

"Mr Blair last week said the government was looking at new court procedures to allow terror suspects to be held without charge for longer than the current two-week limit."

in otherwords internment, and the suspention of Habeas Corpus, which is kind of what you expect from New Labour. He seems to have overlooked the very swift action of the police who do not seem to need this in the case of the London Bombers, the people Blair is (according to him) aiming at, with trials already beginning and all of the suspects having been arrested in the normal manner.

Brit License Plates Get Chipped

Since New Labour seems to be slowing down on getting everybody to carry a microchip with all of their details everywhere they go they have decided to go for the easier option of extending the idnetification on all cars (there being no public transport system worth a damn in order to avoid them) tracking chips are to be added to license plates:

"The British government is preparing to test new high-tech license plates containing microchips capable of transmitting unique vehicle identification numbers and other data to readers more than 300 feet away."

Perfect for the a new breed of speed camera which don't have to announce their presence by actually being by the road side, so greatly increasing their revenue collect ability. Which is all speed cameras are about anyway. As stealth tax, with no positive impact on accident levels and no public support as The Englishman over at The Englishman's Castle says about a different case involving speed cameras "you [the govenment] lost keeping the public 'on your side' a long time ago".

Johann Hari on the Multicult

Johann Hari has a really nice article about the multicult and it's devisive nature, encouraging groups to isolate themselves, and appologising for the oppressive tendencies of certain groups that should not be tolerated in the UK of the 21st century. Such as

One, in particular, is worth quoting at length: "My younger sisters go to Denbigh High School [in Luton] which was famous in the headlines last year because a girl pupil went to the High Court for her right to wear the jilbab [a long body-length shroud]. Shabinah [the girl who took the case] saw it as a great victory for Muslim women ... but what happened next shows this is not a victory for us.

"My sisters, and me when I was younger, could always tell our dad and uncles that we weren't allowed to wear the jilbab. Once the rules were changed, that excuse was not possible any more so my sisters have now been terrified into wearing this cumbersome and dehumanising garment all day against their wishes. Now most girls in the school do the same. They don't want to, but now they cannot resist community pressure ... I am frightened somebody is going to fight for the right to wear a burqa next and then my sisters will not even be able to show their faces."

So to multiculturalists, we have to ask: which Muslim culture do you want to preserve? The jilbab-wearing culture of Shabinah and the mullahs, or the culture of the hundreds of Muslim girls who curse them? All immigrant communities are divided and diverse; it is a form of soft racism to assume they have One Culture that should be respected at all costs.

go read it.

How papyrus can safeguard nuclear waste | The Register

In a really interesting development the UK govenment has decided to store the records relating to long term storage of nuclear waste on Papyrus, or at least the closest that modern paper can get to Papyrus. These are them stored in special archive boxes to keep the conditions optimal for document storage (that is rather like an ancient egyption tomb). Normal paper decays quite quickly due to it's high acid content but Papyrus doesn't have this problem and can last for thousands of years in the correct conditions.

There are other materials that they could have used for this, such as Vellum, which are known to last for many hundreds of years without any extra special storage and is almost indestructable. Up until a few years ago all the records of the UK Parliment, dating back to 1497, where stored on Vellum. However Parliment recently changed to using ordinary paper. I wonder if this is a subtle message about the longevity of the New Labour laws written this way. I hope so.

The Euro, it will colapse eventually

That the Euro will colapse eventually is the conclusion of Tannochside at Scot in the Midwest,

I do believe the Euro will fail. Some countries cheated to make the grade (Italy and Greece), we do not have a clear unified direction, and one size does not fit all. The European project does not have popular appeal. I love Europe, but the lunatics are in charge.................................The most successfull economy in Europe (the UK) manages it's own interest rates. When will we learn?

and this after discussing the matter with many economists. The US based ones said that it would fail for all the usual reasons, whereas the European based ones tended to think that it would sucseed:

Our own President of Europe talked about the "Vibrant" economy of Europe. I still remember one of our senior managers in Europe expressing dismay about the word vibrant - something that vibrates does not necessarily move forwards - just vibrates around a spot. He was on to something.

which in my humble opinion is a great quote, the kind of thing that I would love to see in the quotes database that I'm designing (as a fun free time project) to eventually, hopefully, go into the EUReferendum blog website.

Cleric Bakri will return to UK

After announcing on Channel 4 news last night that he would go for good radical Islamist cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed is coming back, having decided that he doesn't like the prospect of not living amoungst us decadant western infidel dogs. I wonder what it was, the prospect of actually having to work for a living rather than just sucking up state handouts, or that Sharia based states tend to be rather less tolerant of fanatics devoted to destroying them.

Wahabis destroying Mecca and Mediana

Islamofascists in Saudi Arabian are systematically bulldozering the tow holiest places in Islam according to The Independent

The motive behind the destruction is the Wahhabists' fanatical fear that places of historical and religious interest could give rise to idolatry or polytheism, the worship of multiple and potentially equal gods.

They fear that any remains from the time of the prophet, or related to him could end up as shrines and the occupants venerated, leading in their minds (assuming hey have them) to polytheism.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Prospect

Small things like haveing to live under constant police protection and having a death sentence imposed on her by Islamist fanatics does not seemed to have stopped Ayaan Hirsi Ali writing in Prospect and even telling the truth about Muhammad

"Muhammad himself constructed the House of Islam using military tactics that included mass killing, torture, targeted assassination, lying and the indiscriminate destruction of productive goods. This may be embarrassing to moderate Muslims, but the propaganda produced by modern terrorists constantly quotes Muhammad’s deeds and edicts to justify their actions and to call on other Muslims to support their cause."

Religion of Peace eh? Looks more like any other empire building thug of that period. She then goes on to critise the Westerners that refuse to tell the truth about Muhammad for fear of offending Muslims

It should not be offensive, or hurtful, to Muslims to call for clear thought on such an important question. This process should provide an alternative to the utopia promised by terrorists—the open society, and it gives Muslims, like Christians and Jews, an opportunity to liberate themselves from the ever-present menace of hell, which is the single most effective threat the fundamentalists employ. And yet suggestions like this cause many people in the west to flinch. Many hold that questioning, or criticising, a holy figure is not polite behaviour, somehow not done. This cultural relativism betrays the basic values on which our open society is constructed. We should never self-censor.

She concludes that core western values must be maintained, and proclaimed. If she could just convince the multicultists of this who seem to think that every culture other than our own, no matter hoow violent and repressive, should be promoted.

Deportation not fair, says extremist (on benefits)

Poor little terrorist creep, after creaming £300,000 from our benefits system whilst calling for teh destruction of the society that feeds, houses, cloths, and gives him a rather nice new £30,000 car father-of-seven Sheik Omar Bakri could be deported. Good, get back to shitheapistan you medieval throwback.

He has praised the September 11 terrorists as 'magnificent', called Israel 'a cancer' and said homosexuals should be 'thrown from Big Ben'.

In January, he declared that Britain had become a 'land of war', and called on Muslims to unite behind Al Qaeda. He has supported suicide bombings and urged his followers to kill non-Muslims ' wherever, whenever'.

apparently it is not his work free lifestyle that keeps him wanting to stay in this country, he is just thinking about his wives (yes plural) and children. Twat. What about the children who murder you advocate Mr Bakri?

Optimism over new avian flu vaccine

Another stage of testing has been passed by the new avian flu vaccine, avian flu being a virus so deadly that the 1918 outbreak killed off more people than the preceeding 4 years of world war.

The government is ready to move ahead with ordering significantly more than the two million doses it acquired from French vaccine maker Sanofi-Pasteur before testing began earlier this year to jump-start the US vaccine stockpile in case the tests were successful

And since they are putting their money where their mouth is they are confident about this vacine. Another outbreak is likely, and there have been cases reported in asia last year, but if this vacine works hopefully there will be no 1918 style pandemic.

Japan PM to call election after postal defeat

Japan PM to call election after postal defeat:

"Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will call an election for September 11, his coalition partner said on Monday after parliament's upper house rejected bills to privatise the postal system -- the core of Koizumi's reforms."

This might lead to a change of government, or it might not, as the current government has ruled for most of the time since the modern Japanese consititution was created by the Americans after World War 2.

The prime minister's bitterly divided Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed for most of the past half century, is also in danger of losing at the polls for the powerful lower house, politicians and analysts say, reported Reuters

And people think politics is boring in the UK. They seem to be really worked up about their postal system with one member of the Japanese lower house of parliment comparing Koizumi's reforms to suicide bombing. Strong stuff.

Biased BBC, and the multicult

the Biased BBC fills an audience with Muslims utterly disproportionately to there percentage of population in order to pay its multicult tithe of helping to undermine British culture.

Skip the border guard, fast-track the IT - security, UK style | The Register

Skip the border guard, fast-track the IT - security, UK style | The Register:

"So shall we just sum that up? A terror suspect appears to have fled the country by the simple expedient of walking past an empty desk, and the Government's reaction is not to put somebody at the desk, or to find out why, during one of the biggest manhunts London has ever seen, it was empty in the first place. No, the Government's reaction is to explain its abject failure to play with the toys it's got by calling for bigger, more expensive toys sooner."

EU to make Peer to Peer illegal

EU is set to make Peer to Peer software illegal killing off an entire segment of the software industry. Quite frankly if the wording is as vague as the Wired article suggested then it would also make most operating systems illegal.

"Little-noticed language in a European Union plan to crack down on organized piracy could also make indirect copyright infringement a crime across Europe, with implications similar to the recent MGM v. Grokster U.S. Supreme Court ruling, experts say.

A directive being pushed by the European Commission would, among other things, criminalize 'attempting, aiding or abetting and inciting' acts of copyright infringement. The EU parliament will take up the proposal later this year."

Yes it was the 'aiding' that I was thinking of in relation to Operating Systems as any system that allowed a user to copy a file and then send on the copy could be said to be 'aiding' copyright infringement. The only way around that would be if the machine had some kind of DRM system that checked, for every file that you ever tried to copy, that you had the right to perform that copy, and since 'fair use' is so hard to define alogrythmically it would effectively kill it as well.

The directive actually goes further than the U.S. ruling, in that it makes indirect copyright infringement a crime, while Grokster was a civil case.

The European Commission proposal would also set the maximum criminal penalty for piracy by a "criminal organization" to four years in prison and a 300,000-euro fine. Additionally, it seeks to address disparities in anti-piracy criminal penalties across Europe by obliging different EU member countries to draft uniform maximum prison sentences into their sentencing guidelines.

refuse to register for an ID card

No2ID has a new pledge to complement the pledge to refuse to get an ID Card 'I will actively support those people who, on behalf of all of us*, refuse to register for an ID card, and I pledge to pay at least £20 into a fighting fund for them' - PledgeBank it is for people that didn't feel they could take the refuse pledge (because they are not in the UK for example) but want to support anyway. If you are one of these people then please sign up to this. Personally I signed the first one as I have no intention of paying £300 for a useless bit of plastic designed to allow for even greater curtailments of freedom.

Expat Yank takes apart the myth of Islamophobia

Aparently after the 7/7 attacks there was a 600% increase in race hate attacks and now poor innocent Islamofacists are too frightend to leave their (taxpayer funded) homes and are cowering under their tables with there (4) wives. Or maybe not as Expat Yank points out, this is actually 269 events (of which only 135 where actually against Muslims) whereas the normal value is 40. Which for a population is 608,000 so the chance of a Muslim being attacked is 0.022%. Except there seems to be something missing from these figures incedents against natives by Islamists such as the 700 people killed or injured by the Islamofacist attacks. But then again the perpetrators of thoughs events where not natives so the multicultists cannot allow the possibly have been motivated by blind religious hatred.

bombers on benefits

There is a good article by The Business apparently

A Home Office study three years ago found that a paltry 26% of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are fluent in English

and

Only 10% of Anglo-Indian households are workless, a far healthier figure than the 15% for indigenous whites. But more than 30% of British Muslims of Pakistani origins are workless; over 30% of working-age Muslims have no qualifications, twice the national average

Is it me or does the level of workless Muslims an the level of unqualified Muslims seem remarkably similar. I wonder if this could be something to do with their attitudes to education such as, according to Ofsted:

They [Ofsted inspectors] also found that extended holidays in Bangladesh which run into term-time can pose a particular problem to pupils’ progress.

rather than the normal excuse of racism as

The nine schools visited in the small-scale study were praised by Bangladeshi parents for their sensitivity to cultural issues and their scrupulous handling of any racist incidents on the school’s premises.

Pupils had great confidence in their teachers and were sure that teachers would deal with any racist incidents in an impartial and sensitive way. Parents, teachers and pupils saw the work of schools as a strong counter to malign factors in the community, such as racism and criminality.

The Business then goes on to give an example of what worklessness, and the ability to be workless on a very nice 'salary' from the state, does by using the example of one of the would be suicide bomber of 21/7

Arriving as a Somali asylum seeker, he is granted leave to remain indefinitely, given £24,000 in welfare benefits and a council flat in Enfield, which gives him plenty of idle time to be corrupted while the state pays him to do nothing.

So this guy gets paid more than my salary by the state for nothing and then decides that all us westeners are his enemy and must be killed. Nice. Perhaps if he had actually had to work for a living hen he would have had less time to plot killing innocent people and trying to destroy the society that pays for his lifestyle. It goes on

British jihadists have no need of foreign benefactors as long as their own government pays them to do nothing indefinitely. Nor do those who inspire them to take the path of evil need foreign funds when they too are living on generous state benefits. Some of the most prominent Islamic preachers of poison in Britain have never done a decent day's work but prosper on welfare; one was even given a £30,000 "people mover" at taxpayers' expense, on top of the £300,000 he has collected in benefits over the years, because he has a disability. It is striking just how many of those who would blow up us and themselves in our buses and Underground - and those who encourage them to carry out such deeds - have been paid by the British state to do nothing. We are in the grip of terrorist attack from bombers on benefits.

How about a nice simple, and cheap, solution. Stop printing any forms, such as benefits forms, in languages other than English. Only 28% of Pakistanis are fluent in English (which I dought helps there employability) so this would dramatically increase there incentives for learning helping to break them out of the Islamist colonies they form around themselves.

The Devil's Kitchen: Minister admits truth shock!

via Devil's Kitchen via Tim Worstall Minister admits truth shock! The minister: Tony McNulty, the truth: ID Cards are a freedom destroying waste of money. (I was going to write pointless then, but for New Labour destroying freedom is the point.) Devil's Kitchen then goes on to point out McNulty's hints that ID Cards will require further 'reform' of the House of Lords, since they had the gall to stand up for ancient British liberties.

Back when Lords reform was first talked about I thought it would be a good thing as I could not think of a less representitive system. New Labour however could, hence we now have an upper house that is less representitive than when it was purely the domain of the decendant of vicious thugs that other vicious thugs needed to keep on the right side of. The prospect of even more New Labour refroms therefore does not fill me with anything other than trepidation.

EU used as conduit of New Labour authoritarianism

EU Referendum has highlighted New Labour using the EU as a cover for pushing more of it's favoured authoritarian legislation onto hte statute books

"The proposed directive will force telecommunication companies to store logs of all fixed and mobile telephony traffic for one year while internet traffic will have to be kept for six months. The proposal requires the identity and addresses of both the sender and receiver be stored."

So pushing measures that they could get through in Parliment onto our statute books by the totally unaccountable method of an EU directive which has no democratic accountability. They claim that this is all to do with terrorism, however there is evidence to point to other motives

Nor is the proposed law confined just to terrorism, as the records will be more generally available to the authorities to help prevent, investigate, detect and prosecute "criminal offences" and to assist in tracing suspects.

Furthermore, in a style typical of the commission, the term "telecom provider" is not clearly defined. Thus, many businesses which currently own telephone exchanges could be covered by the regulations. Even hotels could be obliged to keep records of their guests' telephone calls.

And, as always, there is no indication of who is expected to pay for the regime. Set up costs in the UK alone are estimated to be €180 million (£124m), while annual running costs could be as high as €50 million (£34.5m).

London bombs terror attack

a bit of background on the people that did the London terror attacks from The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

Again?

There might, or might not, have been another attempted bombing. For details see Europhobia. But if you want mindless speculation ... from the very scant details scraped together by Europhobia

A London Fire Brigade spokesman said: "There was a small fire on a bus and it seems there was a bag found as well. Nobody was injured."

So perhaps another attempt that went wrong like on 21/7? Or maybe explosives that where being transported but became unstable and ignited? Or perhaps nothing. In the words of Mr Nosemonkey

Don't forget we're dealing with fuckwits...

I was wrong

I was wrong about the blogosphere not covering the Parliment square protests enough. Europhobia (I normally leave him/her for an afternoon treat) has a round up. Includign some photos of the protest from KittyKiller.

Westminster free speech protest

None of the blogs that I normally read seems to be highlighting the free speech protests in Parliment Square so I will. Good on you. It is the right to peacefully state your views (rather than blow people up) that makes this country great.

Up to 200 members of the Stop the War coalition, CND and other groups symbolically put gags over their mouths as part of the unauthorised protest, which the police had warned would now be illegal.

Article continues
After warning and photographing demonstrators, police moved in and arrested three men and two women.

The Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, who had been breaking the new law by addressing the demonstration through a small microphone at the time, said: "This is absolutely absurd. Ordinary people have been arrested for taking part in a perfectly peaceful demonstration outside parliament during the recess.

"This demonstration was all about the right to express one's point of view. I suspect that this provocative action by the police on the first day of this new law may encourage other demonstrations."

This law was inacted to stop the brave lone protest of Brian Haw whoe's continous protest over the Iraq War has annoyed the Tyrant Blair (on the rare times that he graces Parliment with His presence) and his cronies. It failed, and Mr Haw is still there, but it did further errode the ancient freedoms of this country, so furthering the New Labour political project of turning the UK into a thoroughly modernised police state.

Police warned not to stop and search

Home Office Minister Hazel Blears was warned the police over stop and search

People should not be stopped and searched just because they are Muslim she said, before the first of a series of meetings with community leaders.

The powers should be used on the basis of available intelligence and not in a discriminatory way, Ms Blears added.

OK how about this little piece of inteligence. Every suicide bomber involved in both the attacks on 7/7, and the attempts of 21/7, was a Muslim. Every single suicide bomber ever to come from the UK has been Muslim. If you are looking for Islamist terrorists then there is a rather good chance that they will be Muslim.

The police did not catch IRA terrorists by looking at Loyalists, or visa versa, they will not catch Islamist Terrorists by not looking at Muslims.

Microsoft blogger: 'My toolbar vanished too!'

I recently posted my thoughts on Microsoft getting back to it's bad old monopolistic tricks. In the comments a certain Mr Scoble left a note about how The Register, which I had blogged, was wrong and evil. Turns out he's a Microsoft PR flack who was trying to bury this story before it blew up. Personally I will continue to think ill of Microsoft until proven otherwise, the yhave far to much form on this one. Innocence until proven until guilty maybe a human right but corporations are not human so don't qualify.

Humans warlike, shock

Terence Kealey writing in the Times brings us the insites gained from Jane Goodall’s seminal study of the battles of the Kasakela chimpanzees of the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. A group of Chimpanzes split into two seperate groupings (did one group have a religious revalation?) after which things started to go wrong. To begin with:

the groups shared the rain forest peaceably, and when their members met they were pleasant. They were old friends.

But after about a year, once the new collective loyalties had firmed up, the two groups grew mutually hostile, and they fell into war. Bands of males from one would descend on bands of the other, killing the males and abducting the females (perhaps chimps, too, dream of 72 virgins). Eventually, after appalling scenes of multiple mutilation and murder, the Kasakelas drove the Kahamas to extinction

which just goes to show how much we share in common with the other primates. She then goes on to human sociology studies that extend this finding into us humans.

The psychologist Judith Rich, in her book The Nurture Assumption, explained how separate group identities are maintained when different cultures share the same urban space. It is a matter of critical mass. When a single Muslim family, say, inhabits a northern town, it acclimatises to northern culture, chip butties and all. But once a school contains sufficient numbers of Muslim children, they forge their own separate, potentially paranoid, identity.

The lesson of science is that a heterogeneous society aspiring to internal peace must follow the melting pot and induct all children into a common culture. That may involve flag worship and other embarrassing ceremonies, but the celebration of diversity may be, biologically, a mistake.

The problem is not the particular differenciator, as the chimp studies showed, but that societies can only assimilate slowly and if the pace is forced then ghetos start to form as people cling to what they know with potentially bad results.

The Evangelical Atheist � Blog Archive � God is a Dick - Part V: Punishment and Predestination in Islam

The Evangelical Atheist as part of the God is a Dick sieres takes on Islam. Rather a dangerous thing to do. He points out that a god that both predetermines every action, and then punishes people for them must be a sick bastard, using the nice analogy of a person owning a puppy, deciding that it is not allowed on the sofa, placing it on the sofa, and then burning it to death whilst sticking pins in it for disobeying. Except that with Allah the torment would continue for ever. Nice.

Which religion is the right one for you? (new version)

I'm a sucker for online quizes. Here is a new one asking Which religion is the right one for you? Well atheism apparently, which is good being an atheist. But Satanism does suprsingly well. I guess that as a frothing-at-the-mouth libertarian the total rejection of the slave morality of Christianity that the leads to will naturally boast the religion set up as it's opposite.

You scored as atheism. You are... an atheist, though you probably already knew this. Also, you probably have several people praying daily for your soul. Instead of simply being "nonreligious," atheists strongly believe in the lack of existence of a higher being, or God. atheism 100% Satanism 96% Buddhism 54% Paganism 54% agnosticism 54% Judaism 46% Islam 33% Christianity 17% Hinduism 8% Which religion is the right one for you? (new version) created with QuizFarm.com