In the Year 2032...

I'm no fan of this particular newspaper and feel they have a tendency to instigate moral panics amongst their readership; however, on occasion they produce some real gems that expose the obession we have with the rights of criminals over the rights of victims and the men and women of law enforcement.

A knife wielding thug is now 'a bag of nerves' after a policeman swore at him during his arrest when he threatened to kill officers. He is now 'scared of the police'. Fantastic I say, job done. Apparently, the poor ikle criminal has had his human rights violated!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1202424/Policeman-rapped-swearing-violent-knife-wielding-thug-threatened-kill-officer.html

What the hell??!!

Did we all just wake up in the futuristic world of Demolition Man? Below is some dialogue from the film. If you've seen it you will know exactly which scene it is refering to. Just replace 'Squad Leader' and 'Simon Phoenix' with 'Police Sergeant' and 'Glen Francis'.

Squad Leader: "Simon Phoenix! Lie down with your hands behind your back."

Simon Phoenix: "What's this? Six of you. Such nice, tidy uniforms. Oh I'm so scared!"

[The police officers look at each other]

Simon Phoenix: "What, you guys don't have sarcasm anymore?"

[Squad Leader talks to his automated assistant]

Squad Leader: "Maniac has responded with a scornful remark."

Automated Assistant: "Approach and repeat ultimatum in an even firmer tone of voice. Add the words 'or else'."

Why don't the powers that be just fine the officer one credit for violation of the Verbal Morality Statute and be done with it.



Demolition Man trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18e4GeUwVWs

Level with me Foreign Secretary

The Foreign Secretary was in Cardiff today. I got a chance to put a question to him at one of the scheduled meetings. I was about the tenth person to ask a question on a range of foreign policy related issues. I wasn't planning to ask a question and to be honest I was expecting the question to be dodged. Anyway, the question went like this:

"This week the terror threat level was lowered to its LOWEST level for the past four years. This against a backdrop of recent arrests for plots to poision ethnic minorities with deadly ricin, and the seizure of the largest terrorist arsenal since the 1990s, over 300 weapons, 80 bombs etc and both involving Far Right extremists. No prizes for guessing their intended targets. For British citizens who are ethnic minorities or Muslims (or both) the terror threat is the HIGHEST its been for the past four years, so my question is do we need a parallel terror level alert system, one for faith and racial minorities and one for everyone else?"

Of course he understood the question was tongue-in-cheek and agreed that terrorism is indiscrminate in its choice of victims, but I didn't get the answer I was hoping he would give i.e. that MI5 would now be probing Far Right terrorism in the same way it currently does with Al-Qaida inspired terrorism. After all, Commander Shaun Sawyer of Scotland Yard's Counter-Terrorism Command said that he feared a neo-Nazi 'spectacular', "I fear they will have a spectacular... they will carry out an attack that will lead to a loss of life or injury to a community somewhere. They are not choosy about which community."

Just because one type of terrorist has hung up their explosives for a while doesn't mean we should let our guard down.

Musings on a 'meaningless word'

One fellow Welsh blogger described it as "the most meaningless word of our age". I'm sure that for many non-Muslims it must be, just like racism must be pretty meaningless if you're part of the racial majority (or racial elite), like sexism must be pretty meaningless if you're a man (or an Amazon). To Europe's Muslim minorities, however, 'Islamophobia' is about as meaningless to us as the word 'Anti-Semitism' is to Europe's Jews.

We're only half way through July and already we've seen:

(A) The passing of the 14th anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre (the largest single act of genocide against a faith minority in Europe since WWII)
(B) The bombing of the offices of the Muslim equivalent of Christian Aid, in Glasgow
(C) The seizure of what is believed to be the largest terrorist arsenal in England (belonging to Far Right extremists) since the IRA campaign of mainland bombings of the early 1990s and;
(D) The murder of a woman and her unborn child in a German courtroom for wearing a piece of cloth on her head.

So how to classify these hate crimes? Some of them are clearly not motivated by racial prejudices but rather by religious ones. Europe's Jews, despite being considered a racial minority group nonetheless have a distinctive word for the hatred, discrimination and assaults against their persons and property - simple 'racism' is too much of a catch all term in this instance that simply doesn't acknowledge the racial/religious distinction in motivation. Muslims are definitely not a single racial minority group and it is quite possible that a Muslim in Europe may find themselves on occasion targeted by someone of their own racial background (be that black, white or brown). Of course, if anyone would like to offer an alternative word to describe the act of religiously motivated hate crimes against Muslims I'll be happy to start using it, because one term like Anti-Semitism is agreed upon by Jews and Gentiles alike and we know it when we see it. Until then, Islamophobia, a word in circulation for at least 10 years, is the only one we have to categorize for example, the kind of pathological hate that drives a man into such a violent frenzy that he could stab a pregnant woman, a complete stranger, to death.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8136500.stm

A more accurate complaint against the word Islamophobia might be that it can be overused and also misapplied - but meaningless it certainly isn't.

Hug a Hooligan - They're S.A.D.

I read a report about a month back that football fans may suffer 'end of season blues' after almost 22 months of uninterrupted matches. It seems from the recent activity in Birmingham and Whitechapel that, if no-one else, the hooligan element at least may have found an outlet to preserve their delicate psychological health. However, early diagnosis may prove difficult for those close to members of this particular group as warning symptoms of '(end of ) Season Affective Disorder' include an inability to focus, lack of direction, irritability, lethargy and an inability to converse.

So presumably on doctor's orders, hooligans 'only hating for our health' turned out in Birmingham city centre last Saturday to distract themselves from the lack of football - a sort of diversionary activity for delinquents. Unfortunately, without the other team to start a fight with the only 'entertainment' for puzzled onlookers was a medley of bad 1980s football chants from the terraces - reason enough in my opinion for the police to baton charge them and give them a good dousing of water cannon. Anyway they were dispersed and Saturday shopping allowed to resume. Meanwhile in Whitechapel, a simultaneous protest had been organised and this time the English Defence League were dutifully supported by the originally titled Welsh Defence League belting out "In-gur-learned, In-gur-learned, In-gur-learned", "Rule Britannia", "I'm English till I die, I'm English till I die, I know I am, I'm sure I am, I'm English till I die"...and other well-known Welsh patriotic sporting anthems.

So if moonlighting as Neo-Nazi political storm troopers between seasons could safeguard the fragile mental health of England's football firms, what about the ordinary decent football supporters? As a rugby man I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I have relatives who are fanatics...about football, but nevertheless I asked them how they were managing to cope with the current absence of meaning in their lives. Their solution?

They're following the cricket.

Well desperate times, desperate measures.

Never Again v. All Over Again

What is it with white supremacists this week?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8094076.stm

First, a failed plot to launch biological warfare against minorities in the UK and now shooting up a Holocaust Museum in the US... this is exactly the sort of thing that loses elections.

Better warn the International Reich Minister (in waiting) of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda that somebody's off message.

Eggs...and other bio-weapons

Someone is subjected to a near fatal salmonella attack using an ingenious weaponized egg-shaped capsule and it's all over the news and so many of us (myself included) have commented on it.

Meanwhile a less news worthy story broke...

It seems, democratic elections or not, the promised 'voluntary' repatriation of non-whites from Britain will not come quick enough for some people:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191148/Police-smash-global-plot-poison-non-whites-lethal-toxin.html

I blogged about the planned Scottish beheadings a little while back and how 'breach of the peace' might not be the charge one would have expected. Given that a non-white got 17 years back in 2005 for planning an attack with the same toxin (without said toxin ever being found), these guys will surely get an ASBO for this...at the very least.

Don't waste a good egg on a bad egg

He's not the first 'politician' to have something from a chicken's bum thrown at him by an angry member of the public, and won't be the last, but due to who he is it has become a freedom of speech issue. Perhaps if he was egged while just walking down the street, rather than trying to hold a press conference people wouldn't be so bothered. It's a bit like burning a book you don't like - sort of jars with our core values really and hard to justify no matter who the individual (speaking) or what the content (of the book).

If the intention of the protestors was to prevent him from speaking - and it undoubtedly was (though I think they were more keen to just deny him the freedom to stand on a single square foot of cosmopolitian London soil) - then it is they who have been left with the egg on their faces. He got to say his piece anyway, even if it was only with a photo of Westminster in the background rather than the real thing, and no doubt enjoyed more airtime as a result than perhaps he would have otherwise.

If I were a Cambridge egghead I might even consider using my own rent-a-mob in future to follow me around and (right on cue as the media pack assembles into place) begin hurling abuse and dairy products and waving banners about to create the stir of publicity that only I benefit from.