European court of human rights meet European convention of Human rights

Not directly to do with the EU, but another European transnational organisation. The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a claim by the German government against home schooling. (And yes, I believe people should be free to send their children to Madrassas. But I do object to having to pay for the subsequent failure that this will cause. Freedom means the freedom to to make mistakes. But I see no reason that I should have to pay, and not just financially in this case, for the mistakes of others.) Now ignoring for a moment the drivel that these particular home schoolers wanted to teach the European Court of Human Rights should be upholding the European Convention of Human Rights that states:

No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.

Quite clearly this means that if the education provided by the state conflicts with what their invisible friend tells them then they should be able to indoctrinate their kids with whatever nonsense they think the sky fairy would prefer. It does not mean as the court seems to want it to mean:

by its very nature calls for regulation by the State.

If anything the nature of education requires that it is not regulated by the state, for reasons best described by J S Mill.

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.

This argument was perfectly understood by those that put the law against home schooling onto the german statute books in 1938.

One swallow does not a summer make

It appears that the EU has finally found a regulation that it does not like. In a change from the norm it is sweeping away a raft of national legislation and replacing it with ... nothing!

Yet another national power has been removed and sucked into the Acquis Communautaire handing yet more control over to the budding EU state, that is to be expected. Everything the EU does is about sucking more power into itself as the one way rachet of the Acquis means it can do nothing else. But at least this time the EU has used its power to deregulate.

That does not however answer the question as to why it should be regulating the size of bread in the first place. Is this really such a matter of European importance that it can only be dealt with at the European level? Or doing most of it's other regulating for that matter. Or destroying the fisheries of two continents, or subsidising France agriculture (to the detriment of, well, everybody), or setting taxes, or meddling with countries' economies. Or in fact practically everything it does. One Swallow does not make a summer, and one bit of deregulation does not change the basic nature of the EU.

Religion is stupid

Looks like Christian nutters are deciding to follow the Islamists lead in trying to impose their religious docterine through in suicide bombing. Well it works for the Islamists doesn't it? The would be terrorist wanted to strike a blow for the 'pro-life' (don't you just love the irony?) movement by attacking an abortion clinic. Unfortunately the Christian nut in question hadn't quite thought through all the details. Such as making sure the clinic that he was attacking actually performed abortions, or that you cannot make a car bomb by just pouring a couple litres of petrol over the bonnet.

And once it was ablaze, he scratched his plan to kill himself when he realized it was going to be painful.

No one was injured, not even the would be suicide bomber himself, and there was nobody in the building at the time.

Muslim riots not considered a story by BBC

Via Dr (I didn't spend 10 years on my Ph.D to me called Mr) Angry I find that another religious group is rioting. Not Christians in Indonesia but back to the usual suspects, Muslims.

Three days of rioting in neighbouring country, including the rioters setting fire to a hospital, that is just a train ride away should be a big story, but on the BBC I find a story related to north africans fighting for France 50 years ago, but not the north africans fighting in Belgium now. It's not as if it is just journalistic laziness, the riots are going on a stones throw from the Eurostar station. If they wanted to they could go over, get their footage and be back snorting coke in the edit suite ready for the late news. Perhaps they are scared of getting their marching powder (and the expensive equipment bought through the TV Tax, but who cares about that?) stolen at the train station.

The riots have only been going on for three days so far, so if they act the same as last year there is still a while to go before the mainstream media has to pick it up. That is if they pick it up at all and don't censor themselves out of fear of the Muslim attacks. Or maybe they simply have not been granted permission by the relivant Muslim community leaders to run the story, like the police have to be granted permission before they can raid suspected Islamist terrorists. Even the dead cannot escape being dhimmished.

This is all so predicatable, the followers of the world's most violent religion are simply following the logic of their religion. The government and mainstream media are following the logic of the multicult. So expect more consessions, and expect more riots. Expect Vlaams Belang to do extremely well in the next Belgian elections, and expect the Beligan government to attempt to ban it. Again.

soft power evaporates

It would appear that the EU has cooled to the idea of expansion and has decided to call a halt after Romania and Bulgaria join. But what of the EU's 'soft power' that comes from the tempting carrot of getting on board the EU gravy train? Loosing that shouldn't really be a problem, since it never existed in the first place as far as external influance is concerned. Internally however it without 'soft power' a new excuse for the EU's existence is going to have to be dreamed up. Telling people that they need the EU as a place to send failed politicians to get their snouts in the trough does not exactly give a good impression no matter how accurate it is.

Guardian economics

Realy somebody that understands economics should be having ago at this piece by Mark Braund, but some of the points are just so obvious I'm going to anyway.

First, a substantial economic downturn is inevitable, and even if it's not on the scale of 1929, few of us will be able to escape its effects.

That is you are going to bring up the spectre of a crash caused by the bursting of a massive speculative bubble when there isn't one, and so isn't likely to be a crash. The economy might be ripe for a downturn but it is not because of the bursting of a specultive bubble like 1929 (or the bursting of hte dot com bubble that we got through without the fracturing of society). Any downturn would be more to do with this socialist government strangling business with regulation and tax, and so stopping the productivity gains needed to keep growing.

Second, even if, when compared with previous eras, the numbers living in absolute poverty are now negligible, growing inequality is still a recipe for a fractured society.

So even though we are in so much a better situation than in any previous recession in terms of poverty or inequality when it comes it will require massive socialist intervention to avoid a fracturing of society and social unrest. Like the social unrest of the years of union militancy (when the Gini co-efficient was at it's lowest), or the massive growth in the number of murders per capita since the foundation of the welfare state.

Today, not only is the ownership and control of land concentrated in the hands of a small minority, but access to, and control over, capital (the other key facilitator of economic activity) is also the privilege of a small minority.

Thanks to Thatcher's reforms (believing that home owners are on average more likely to vote conservative) there is a higher level of being owner occupiers than ever before. This is of course helped by easy access to capital in through the debt markets. This is one of the things normally brought up as one of the reasons for coming economic turbulance. It's a good to know that they actually don't exist then!

Speculative investment siphons off billions of dollars which could otherwise be invested in enterprises which make things that people want and need.

Ermm in what are these speculative investments invested in? Wouldn't that be stocks and bonds of enterprises which make things that people want and need? With the market directing most money towards the enterprises which make things that people want and need the most since that is where the highest return is? The current markets aren't perfect but they are the best system that we have for distributing resources, and we have been getting constructing markets since they emerged before the dawn of recorded history. They will continue to improve in the future. But that means working with our knowlege economic realities, rather than dumping them for ideological reasons as Mr Braund wants to do according to his Guardian Profile.

he argues that the discipline of economics has been hijacked by the interests of minority wealth and privilege, and outlines an alternative vision for economics which could address the twin evils of global warming and entrenched poverty.

ID Card too expensive - home office minister

There appears to be somebody in government has realise how baddly it does when comissioning IT systems. Somebody had to notice sometime, since they do go wrong every single time, and the clever chap happened to be Home Office Minister Liam Byrne.

"There are opportunities which give me optimism to think that actually there is a way of exploiting systems already in place in a way which brings down the costs quite substantially," he said.

He was speaking after Roger Smith, director of human rights group Justice, urged the government to use the current "lull" in the project to scale down the plans.

He warned that less affluent voters in particular would oppose the scheme if they were forced to pay for the cards.

He is talking about the up front fee for getting your barcode tatoo ID Card, since everybody is going to have to pay for the Database through taxation. Scaling it down will save costs, and saving money is a good thing. So why not scale it down till it is nothing more than what is really needed and scale it down to nothing at all.

conspiracy theory is free

Comment is free does sometime come up with good stuff, like this comment by Teri to an article on the candidates for the French presidential election.

Of course Mr Sarkozy is openly pro American. He is an Israeli agent whose job it is to take over France after Chirac and De Villepin opposed the Israeli ordered invasion of Iraq by the British and Americans.

Little does he know that the evil joooz are merely a front for the Illuminati, our reptilian overlords who control the world from their secret Caribbean underwater volcano base. <evil cackle>Muwhaha</evil cackle>

religion is stupid

As we head towards Ramadan a little anecdote I once heard about it. I have a friend that served in the Royal Navy, and at one point his ship was cruising up in the northern latitudes close to the Arctic circle. On board was an officer from the Saudi Royal Navy attached to them for joint training. Never the most reliable person the crew realised that he was getting even more flaky than normal. You see that year Ramadan, which follows the Luna rather than solar calendar, fell during the summer and in keeping with his strong religious beliefs the Saudi officer was fasting during the hours of daylight. Unfortunately for him at that latitude dusk was not going to fall for several months, which could have been a bit of a problem. Some radio calls to the uber-mullahs back in Saudi and they managed to find a loop hole so that he could eat and get back to his normal, but still flaky, self.

The point of this story? The laws presented by an omnipresent god to be implemented across the entire planet do always seem strangely adapted to the local situation of the prophet that picked up the call. Weird that.

hostage to fortune 2

When John Reid took control of the All Consuming Monster from Charley the Safety Elephant he said that he would get it under control in 100 days.

The reason that Charley was thrown out was the debacle of the Home Office loosing 1000 foreign prisoners that should have been deported after their release. It has now been 122 days, so now that we hear that the foreign prisoners squad is to be disbanded surely it can mean only one thing, that all of them have been accounted for and any that after judicial review deserve to be deported have been. Well no, not exactly.

At the last count, more than 400 of the prisoners had not been traced. They included 74 violent and sexual offenders, seven of them guilty of murder, manslaughter, rape or sexual offences against children.

However it is no longer in the headlines so no longer a priority. There are much better things to use to stoke up the fear needed to progress the Home Office agenda.

religious rioting

More religously inspired rioting, and this time not Muslims. Large numbers of Christians in the Indonesian Central Sulawesi province:

torching an official’s house, looting shops and setting prisoners free

The riots where apparently sparked off by the execution of three men for being the ringleaders in sectarian rioting in 2001, an example of the deterent effect of the death penalty. Luckily no deaths so far, other than the executed men obviously, but that may change as:

Muslim-Christian clashes rocked Central Sulawesi from late 1998 to 2001, killing an estimated 2,000 people, before a peace accord took effect. There has been sporadic violence since.

Ms Blears? Please fuck off and die

The market for seats in the House of Lords having become a little difficult Labour is looking for other ways of paying for itself. They could try engaging with their members to rase funds, or even appeal to people to increase their membership. But the idea of a mass membership party is just soooo old Labour. No there is a better way; use their position as the party of government to use the state to take money for their personal benefit.

How shall I put this? Fuck off and die you scrounging cunts. If I thought that the Labour Party where worth shit maybe I would join up and give it some of my money, as it is I would not be willing to piss on it if it was on fire. Labour is a party lead by such authoriarian dick heads that it makes even Michael Howard look warm and fluffy. Keeping those jackboots so very, very shiny might cost a lot in polish, but it is the Labour leadership's choice to wear them. The labour party already syphons tax payers money into it's own coffers via non-jobs for it's union paymaters (laundered through the Unity Trust Bank). You want my money? Earn it.

The last bastion of Socialism

Polly is trying to defend the last bastion of Socialism.

Last year I unfortunately had to go to a NHS hospital. It took threats to transfer myself to another (better) one 20 miles away (which I would have done despite the broken ankle, and would have done had there been anymore waiting) to get any service. The hospital was disgusting, the ward was filthy. The nursing was so poor they actually got my notes confused with another patient down the ward, and at one point said I could not go home after my operation since I had not had my operation due to a (non-existant) heart complaint. The person in the bed oppersite me had come in for a minor complaint and was getting his veins burned out because of the anti-biotic they where using was having a bad side effect. I never want to go on the NHS again.

Where it not for the exorbitant amount that I'm forced to pay for a system that I do not want I would be perfectly able to afford private health insurance, and still have more money left each month. I could then spend this on things that would keep me healthy. Like being able to eat every day.

The problem with the 'internal market' wasn't that it introduced a market, but that it didn't. It didn't matter if the numbers added up or not, it was alice in wonderland accounting. It didn't matter what level of service was offered. All it did was create a large layer of bureaucracy.

The problem with PFI isn't that it has introduced a market, because it hasn't. Not PFI scheme can ever be allowed to fail by government, so all the risk is still bourne by government. This means there is none of the 'creative destruction' that allows the market to find the most efficient way of providing a service. PFI is simply an expensive way of hiding debt off the balance sheet.

Under the current centralised structure the NHS will never get better, it cannot. It will simply roll from one crisis to the next. Nobody can manage something that big. But there are other ways, the best health system in the world is sitting just across the channel in France. Why not use that? Or if you have an alergy to insurance maybe the decentralised Swedish model? How about the model used for General Practice and Prosthetics within the NHS, that of small companies (often Co-Ops) competing with each other to provide the best service in order to secure contracts? There are other models, all of which will work better than the NHS because the NHS is simply unworkably big in its current form. The only reason to try and defend it's current structure is if you have some deep seated and irrational love of big government that outweighs any desire to see sick people get better. But then this is Polly Toynbee.

good things from the sea

San Fransisco is planning to generate power from it's tides, with a chance that work on the turbines could start as early as 2008. Tidal power has a major advantage over every other renewable energy resource, it's reliable. There will never be a day when there is not a tidal current to use and varriations in timing and strength can be calculated months or years in advance and so planned for. This is not possible with any other system, photovoltaics power will change based on cloud cover, solar furnice systems will simply stop on any overcast day. The wind does not always blow. Even wave power does not have the kind of absolute reliability of the tides. The only renewable that rivals it is hydro-electric, which means damming up valleys and destroying swathes of land and the ecosystems that it contains. Tidal power should be of particular interest to the UK with our long coast line and strong tides, the Bristol channel has the second most powerful tidal currents in the world. But I don't expect anything soon, just yet more bloody windmills if anything.

Uncommercial break

Samizdata is publicizing a very worth cause, a comedy benefit performance in aid of the NO2ID campaign.

Time for a bit of swearing ...

Wow, I'm a swear blog. So I guess I had better start blogging again. And Swearing. Luckily the latter comes fairly easily for a spittle flecked, badger banging, monkey sucker like me.

Islam is violent

The Pope has made a speach on the history of Islam correctly noting how Islam was spread by the sword. This historical fact has of cause enraged the Islamic world, as everything enrages the Islamic world, expect violent riots as Muslims around the world protest about how non-violent Islam is. Unlike the Iranian Holocaust denial cartoons continue not to provoke a single riot or death, but did cause a group of Israelis to produce a much funnier set of their own.

'Thieft is good' - Polly Toynbee

Polly has done it again 'taxes are a moral good' in themselves:

But that 50p rate does something else besides. It is a totem in its own right.

No Polly, taxes are a way of financing the state. It is only by judging the overall effect on peoples happiness that a moral position can be formed.

I have never met anybody that becomes happy because they have just paid a tax bill, that there is a whole industry devoted to tax avoidance show quite clearly how much paying tax is resented. Taxes therefore cause much unhappiness. The question is does the state's spending of this money mean that overall happiness increases more than it causes agrigate individual happiness to decrease? The state funding on certain things can increase happiness; such as education, health (no that does not mean it has to be a centralised NHS) and policing. But there are also huge swathes of state spending which do nothing to increase happiness and can even decrease it; such as subsidies like CAP or using the police to enforce pointless draconian liberty destroying restrictions.

To say that 'taxes are a moral good' in themsleves is completely illogical unless you think that taking peoples money is a moral good in itself, ignoring any consequences. Nobody would point to Ronny Brigs or Robert Maxwell as a moral crusader yet that is exctly what Polly is implying. Which is rediculous, but then so is Polly.

Five Years On

Five Years On this is what we know about Islam

Paper reprints Holocaust cartoons

It is now 5 days since a Danish paper reprints the Holocaust cartoons commissioned by Iran in a failed attempt to show that no paper would print cartoons about the Holocaust like the, extremely tame, cartoons of Mohammed. Still no Jewish riots or marchers proclaiming 'behead those that insult the memory of the Holocaust'. The Danish embassy in Israel remains unscathed. Perhaps the Rabbis have yet to fake up anything sufficiently bad to mix in with them to stir up some artificial outrage, or maybe it is the evil jooooz and their control of the media that means we just aren't being shown the scenes of devastation. Or it could be that Jewish people aren't looking for an excuse to riot, kill, and wallow in anything that bolsters their sense of victimhood.

anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism

One of these two statements was made by a British MP, have a guess which one.

"British citizens who happen to be born Muslim have to accept responsibility for the anger there is against Islamism."

"British citizens who happen to be born Jews have to accept responsibility for the anger there is against Israel or America."

... A little obvious I know, nobody would say anything like that about Islam if they wanted to live.

Hinduism and Christianity are not compatiable

According to Dizzy Christianity and Hinduism and are not compatiable, which in a strick interprtation is correct. Christianity is monotheist, and it's god is rather jealous being prone to throwing His toys out of the pram should he think that there is any worship of anybody else going on behind His back. Hinduism on the other hand being polly theistic is perfectly compatible with the worship of YHWH, it's gods being in a more open relationship with the followers.

Anti-semitism in the Guardian

Dennis MacShane has completed a parlimentary report on the rise of anti-semitism in this country and has an article about it in the Guardian. This being Al Guardian the anti-semites surface quickly.

There are some claims that keep on recuring with respect to anti-semitism. One of them is using critism of Israel as an excuse for anti-semitism, then saying that they must be able to excuse anti-semitism this way as their critisms of Israel are anti-zionist, and anti-zionism is not anti-semitism. You can almost hear logic creaking under the strain of these contortions.

Even where it not for the pretzel logic of this excuse it still wouldn't work, since the normal critisisms of Israel are themselves lies.

Lies such as claiming somehow that Israel has an aparthied system. Arab citizens of Israel are a minority and they are full citizens like any other. Unlike under aparthied where the blacks where the majority and had significantly fewer rights than whites. This is not just the Jewish arabs that where expelled from other middle eastern countries, but all of them including the 70% that are not Jewish. There are arab members of the elected to the Knesset, and even an arab political party in the Knesset. Can you imagine a Jewish political party in any other Middle Eastern country? Most do not even offer them full citizenship and require that they accept Dhimmi status, a true aparthied system.

There is the claim that Isrealis are war criminals, when the war crimes in the conflict they are talking about where commited by Hezbollah. There is the claim that the Israelis do not respect human rights, when they do. Israel being the only country in the entire region that does. And of course the claim that Israelis are Nazis. Since they allow their minority groups to live freely with full rights, and have never called on another state to be wiped off the map and it's citizens killed or driven into the sea. Unlike the governments of some other countries in the middle east.

Not that the anti-semites care much for facts. In the world of the anti-semites black is white, slavery is freedom, and war is peace.

equality is to your right

From the Adam Smith Institute comes this quote:

"Some of the most left-wing journalists I know pay school fees, or intend to do so. Other bus (or taxi) their children to a covertly selective state school, while making a fuss about how they didn't 'go private'. I can think of only a handful who chose a conventional council comprehensive."

- Peter Wilby, former editor of the New Statesman (Times Educational Supplement, 28 July 2006)

These journalists are smart enough to understand that selective schooling does allow the kids to reach more of their potential, and so they hang up their lefty morality out of love for their children to ensure they have the best possible start. Everybody elses children of course don't matter so much, and can therefore stay in comprehensive system. Their thinking being that it be better obviously that somebodies elses children suffer for your personal morality than your own. Just as it is better to spend somebody elses money (via state coercion) rather than your own (via charity) to demonstrate your personal morality.

Strangely it is generally people on the right that call for everybody to be able to get the chance of giving their children the education that they would wish for their own. It is therefore the right that is more egalitarian on this issue, rather than simply thinking that saying the correct words to sound egalitarian, like these lefty journalists, is all that is needed.

One ring to rule them all

Here is an interesting article on Tolkien's view of power, a view that can be seen in his attitude to the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings.

Attacks on Jews soar since Lebanon - Britain - Times Online

Despite the constant implied threats and real terrorist plots and murders by the large Islamist minority amongst Muslims the average Muslim has very little to fear. The 'backlash' that various Islamist voices pre-emptively claim victimhood by every time there is another demonstration of the Islamist modus operandi has never happened. That is not to say that there are no minority groups that suffer from attacks based on mindless prejudice.

British Jews are facing a wave of anti-Semitic attacks

This I think everybody can agree is a terrible fact. Judaism racial as well as religious. You don't have to be devote to be a Jew you can be a secular Jew, even an atheist Jew, and still be a Jew. You cannot choose not to be a jew like you can choose not to be a Christian or Muslim (even if this does come with an automatic death sentence), but an atheist jew would have been thrown into the ovens alongside his orthodox counterparts. It is terrible and I had hoped that the horrible racist had been shown that this kind of behavior is not acceptable as part of British society. Except they have, and it is not the racist scum of old:

We hardly ever see incidents involving the classic neo-Nazi skinhead.

Which is good but:

Muslims are over-represented.

...

In Hampstead Garden Suburb, swastikas and the words “Kill all Jews” and “Allah” were daubed on the house and car of Justin Stebbing. Dr Stebbing, who works at a hospital, said: “I felt violated. It’s horrible.”

So now we discover where all the muslim experience of racism that we are all warned about actually comes from, the perpetration of it by the Islamofascists amongst them.

Tony's distopia

When Tony's idea for state Podding Hutchs as a way to control the Epsilons broke I decided not to write since everything that needed to be said had been, and I was too incandescent at the gall of the smug fascist to construct a proper argument again the authoritarian cunt.

One of Princess Toni's arguments for the need for asbo's for fetuses was that they could grow up to be anti-social, no need of cause to wait to see how they actually grow up, and so state intervention could pre-emptively rehabilitate them. So this piece in The Times is instructive as to want would actually happen should the Dear Leader get his way.

[of children under state care] only about 6 per cent can expect to achieve the benchmark of five GCSEs at grades A* to C that will provide them with a gateway to further education when they get their results tomorrow. This compares with 56 per cent for all other children.

As in previous years, only 1 per cent of children in care can expect to go to university this year, compared with 37 per cent of all young people.

A poor education does disproportionately lead to a life of crime, since if you have had a poor education you do not have the skills to get a legitimate job. What Tony is proposing would therefore mean is the State breaking up families where the children could end up anti-social and drain on society, and so the State can guarantee that they do.

The Devil's Kitchen: Whitey's racist

Is it polite to Fisk on a first date? I don't know. But the Devil certainly has a little fun delving into the guts of an article by Mr Aki Nawaz, and then pulling it apart. There is little I can add, but I would just like to emphasise a couple points.

Mr Nawaz says:

All the bridges, which have had to be built a million times, have been repeatedly burnt down

These bridges where built by the indigenous and burnt down by Muslims. So now we have to submit and 'go down on bended knee'? No thanks. If he feels that he would be happier living under Sharia then he is free to go somewhere that has Sharia. Personally I don't want to live under a legal system that requires I be killed. Irrational of me I know.

Mr Nawaz himself points out why we should not give any more concessions to the Islamic community:

It is a fact that communities that want to integrate into the British way of life (whatever that means) have done so

Muslims have not integrated because they choose not to (partly because it is not in their economic self interest, partly because it is forbidden by Islam). Integration has been offered on terms perfectly acceptable to every other minority group, and excepted by every other minority group. Except the Islamists. There is therefore no reason to believe even if the rest of us did submit and 'go down on bended knee' as he demands that they would integrate. They will simply take what is offered and demand more.