The ordinancedidn’t even faze Shirley Miller, an Englishwoman who moved from Essex to be with her American husband. She said her adjustment was easy for the most part.
At this point, one feels the CiF columnist hired to write the usual hoplophobic screed is scratching his or her head. Not fazed by guns? How can this be?
Coming from a small village to the east of London, Great Wakering, she finds small-town England and small-town America mostly alike, except for Nucla’s blazing, dusty summers and, of course, its bounteous guns.
That aside, Nucla’s culture is not so different from small English villages, Miller said: the lack of diversity; the mix of open-mindedness and old prejudice among the residents.
Hmmm, why should 'the lack of diversity' be considered as disturbing as a proliferation of firearms?
There have been small adjustments. She imports her Tesco and Yorkshire tea by mail, along with the occasional package of sultanas and Marmite, and each year she lets a friend’s sheep graze in the empty pasture by her house, adding a nice pastoral touch to the property.
Still, our intrepid guide forges on:
She refuses to say a word against the gun ordinance.
“Although I come from a culture where there are no guns, and it’s different here, I don’t see the problem here in Nucla,” she said diplomatically.
“If I were living in the city [these gun laws] would worry me. Here it doesn’t,” she said before adding wryly: “There is no crossfire here.”
Once can only imagine the look on the columnist's face at this point!
...maybe you should run your police officers through the same training we run our police horses...
Killer policeman Mohamed Noor has said he was 'startled' by his victim Justine Damond seconds before he opened fire.
According to Noor's version when they reached the end of the alley, they came across a waiting, panicking figure.
It was dark, and the figure was moving around and approached their vehicle.
Noor said he did not know whether the figure who rushed towards their vehicle was the 911 caller or even if it was a man or woman.
He fired his weapon through Harrity's open driver's window hitting his victim once in the abdomen.
/facepalm
There's no closing ranks with this one, either:
The police chief, Janee Harteau, who was on leave at the time of the shooting last week, distanced the police department from the actions of officer Mohamed Noor in her first public comments on the matter.
Her press conference also followed the release a statement by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension [BCA] on the investigation on Thursday.
“Justine didn’t have to die. Based on the publicly released information from the BCA [Bureau of Criminal Apprehension], this should not have happened,” Harteau said.
“On our squad cars you will find the words, ‘To protect with courage and serve with compassion.’ This did not happen. Having the information that is publicly available right now recognising there’s an open BCA investigation.”
Harteau said Noor’s shooting of Lamond, who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault and was in her pyjamas when she approached the squad car and was shot multiple times, “go against who we are as a department, how we train and the expectations we have for our officers”.
Wow! That's quite unusual. You'll note, too, that there's no riots over this, no #Aussielivesmatter campaign...
Responding to a question from a reporter that it was rare for a police chief to publicly disown an officer under investigation, Harteau acknowledged it was unusual but said “each situation is different, and when information has been made public, I certainly can speak on what the public knows”.
Predictably, the usual suspects are crying 'racism!' because the cops were black and she was white, and that's why the police department aren't offering the usual unqualified support.
As for why the body cameras weren't turned on, it's because, after this incident, even the thickest Minnesota cop must have realised it's not going to help:
The new video, recorded by Mays’ body camera and first obtained by Minneapolis Star Tribune, shows the incident from the officer’s vantage point.
In it, the cop points his drawn service weapon at Ciroc, which comes running towards him but stops short.
The dog appears to be calmly pacing around for a few seconds on the grass, with his tail slightly wagging, before the officer fires his gun, striking the dog in the face.
Rocko then makes a dash towards the officer and also gets shot, about 2-3 seconds later.
'I dispatched both of them,' Mays is heard telling his partner after the fact.
In fact, both dogs are still alive. You can't cure stupid, but you can certainly record it!
Last week the latest homeless figures revealed that black and minority ethnic (BME) communities are bearing the brunt of seven years of rising homelessness.
The statistics reveal that 36% of people accepted as statutorily homeless by local authorities in England during 2016-17 were from a BME background: close to three times their representation in the population.
Isn't that almost exactly their representation in the justice system too? And I don't mean on the right side of the dock!
What is surprising is how little this disproportionate level of housing need on racial grounds has registered in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire, where the majority of residents were from a BME background.
BME households are more likely than white ones to experience housing stress, such as overcrowding, poorer quality housing and fuel poverty, and to be more concentrated in England’s most deprived neighbourhoods.
So what possible conclusion are you coming to? I wonder, I do indeed wonder...
Institutional racism has played a continuing role in perpetuating racial discrimination and disadvantage in housing.
Ah. Of course. There it is!
Residential qualifications have returned to the social housing system through the Localism Act 2011. And choice-based lettings approaches have reduced BME community access to social housingwhere applicants to social housing can choose to compete for a vacant home (usually online), rather than through housing needs-based approaches to allocating homes are also shown to indirectly disadvantages BME communities. We know that policies like these only sustain the persistence of racial discrimination in England’s housing system. If we want to correct this, we need to start talking about institutional racism in our housing system again.
That 'if' in your last sentence is doing a lot of work.
Paul Brandis, chairman of the bench, said Pitcher’s actions were “distasteful” but accepted he has shown “remorse”.
He said: “It caused suffering to the kitten. This is aggravated by the fact that this was a domestic argument.
“The killing of the kitten was used as a control mechanism against your partner.”
Personally, when the police called, he'd have been lying face down on the kitchen floor, rapidly cooling to ambient temperature with a Sabatier in his ribcage if it had been me.
Pitcher was handed a 12 week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months. He was ordered to take part in a relationships course and pay £250 compensation.
Magistrates also made an order banning Pitcher from keeping or being in control of any animal in any way for the next two years.
Because in two years time, he won't be a thick, unemployed brute who the local dimwits see as potential relationship material?
Mr Asare, who has organised around 50 events over the last five years, said: “In the night life industry you are going to get incidents across the board, whether that be house, garage, punk rock.It’s bound to happen sometimes when there’s drink involved.”
I'm pretty sure they sell drink at Glyndebourne, the Royal Opera House, and the Last Night of the Proms. Yet I can't seem to recall any violence...
He said: “It is pre-assumed because it is an urban event that there is going to be certain demographic there, that is going to be a lot of black people there.”
There's 'a lot of black people' at these huge black church revivalist events, yet again, rarely any violence.
So it's not 'black people' per se, it's the type of 'black people'.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said council licensing committees hold the power to alter a venue's right to host events.
He added: "Southwark Police applied for a licensing review of The Coronet following an incident of violent disorder outside the venue in the early hours of Sunday, 2 July. Incidents like this are a drain on police resources and have a detrimental impact on local residents in the area.
"Officers have been working with, and will continue to work with, the local council, the venue and other partners to ensure the night-time economy in Southwark remains a vibrant, yet safe environment for all to enjoy."
A petition signed by 1,500 people demanded the resignation of the entire council leadership, with resident Eve Wedderburn telling councillors: '"We do not recognise your right to govern our community.'
That's not how we do things over here, old chap.
Relatives of those killed called for mass resignations, with survivor Mahad Egal telling councillors: ‘You have murdered us. There is manslaughter here... You have committed a crime against all of us here.’
In this country, that's for the police and justice system to decide, not howling demagogues.
The meeting was later adjourned after Ms Jamalvatan collapsed and had to be treated by paramedics.
Earlier she had made an impassioned plea to the council for equal treatment for rich and poor in the affluent borough.
Waving the keys to her former flat in the tower, she said: ‘The UK is accusing other countries about a lack of human rights, but there are lots of people from those counties living in the UK. Why don’t you care about human rights here?’
Where have your 'human rights' not been met, here? What sort of treatment do you think you'd have got in your home countries over a fire that burned you out of your home?
That's it. Enough is enough. But if Grenfell Tower has done one positive thing, it's got to be alerting a wider audience to the totally alien culture that's grown up, unnoticed, in our midst.
Sadly, I fear it's much too late to do anything about it.
...and not an awful lot about pressure in the A&E:
When I say that I fleetingly think about the drive home, it’s not because I’m counting down the hours until I finish. I’m thinking more along the lines of, “I am knackered. How am I going to drive home without crashing into a tractor or something?” You start to think about your own mortality. It’s not a baseless fear – 57% of doctors in the position have said they’ve had an accident or near-miss. When I first started working in north Wales I lived around 25 minutes away from the hospital, requiring a run home on the A55. It’s full of fast-moving trucks, and negotiating those after a set of nights is possibly one of my most terrifying experiences. All my car windows were open, whatever the weather, the radio was on loud and I was forcing myself to sing along to every single song. I’d crawl at 40mph to the annoyance of everyone, because I didn’t trust myself to stay awake – and if I did crash then at least speed wouldn’t be a factor in the trauma I might suffer or bring to someone else. I’d pull over, try to cat nap – whatever it took to get home intact.
I moved closer because the fear of that drive home was mounting and I guessed it would be only a matter of time before there was an accident. The nightshifts were exhausting and as the A&E registrar in charge of the shop floor, the pressure was relentless. By 8am I was a ghost of myself.
You poor thing! You must be exhausted, and have no time to...
Wait.
I have a dual career – as a doctor and a film-maker/journalist.
You've got time to write columns for 'CiF' and make films for every leftie cause going?
When I am working a late shift within the media I will be entitled to a taxi home. There will be hot food available somewhere in the building and plenty of breakout spaces to grab a rest. The following day, when working a nightshift in A&E, where I’ll be responsible for patients, making life-or-death decisions and possibly not sitting down for 10 hours, I won’t have the same facilities.
Then you know which career suits you best, don't you?
Before training to be a doctor I was an army officer and yet again, facilities existed to ensure comfort after hard work.
You've had a lot of roles in life. Is it because you're eternally dissatisfied with your lot?
In St Clair's defence statement, he said that his friends started to make a commotion because some of them were scared of dogs.
Hmmm...
He said that Mr Anderson was racist towards the defendant, who was a sixth former at the time and used terms such as 'monkey' and 'n****r'.
Any witnesses?
'This is a young man with great promise who has a place at university. Someone who is an example of someone who will do the best he can and will live his life as a law abiding person.'
Well, he hasn't managed up until now, has he!
Judge Zoe Smith sentenced St Clair, of Oxford, to four years imprisonment with 112 days of electronic tag deducted.
WTF..? When was he on the tag? Was it when he was on bail for the more serious charge of murder?
The victim's mother Edith Anderson revealed her pain and suffering has left her longing for her son to walk back into her arms with 'the smile he always had on his face'.
In a statement read to the court, the pensioner spoke of her distress: "My family will take a long time to get over the loss of their brother and son. My husband and I will never get over it."
So, how did this death occur?
Mr Anderson was cycling along High Street towards The Plain roundabout, while some of the group ran ahead of him, but decided moments later to get off his bike and push it back towards Carfax.
A witness revealed he spotted St Clair, who played for football team Littlemore Youth, then run towards the victim as he attempted to mount his bike at about 11.30pm.
St Clair, of Kestrel Crescent, Oxford, then lunged back on one leg, swinging his other leg around, rotating his body and kicking Mr Anderson.
The victim crashed to the ground, thumping his head on the pavement before St Clair fled the scene and jumped onto a bus, prosecutor Matthew Walsh said.
So the victim was clearly avoiding a confrontation when the worthless scum launched his attack? Surely that's worthy of more time in jail?
There are multiple versions of events, multiple opposing “truths”. The police say 80 dead. Some residents still say 200, 300, maybe 400. The council says it is offering good quality accommodation, most of it in Kensington and Chelsea. Tenants say they are being pushed out of the borough, fearing rent hikes when the promised period of grace is gone.
Again and again, the bereaved say they are being left in the dark. There is no communication. They scream for answers. Yet we are told that every family has a family liaison officer or social worker if they want one. There has been a string of meetings now with myriad authorities but few seem satisfied.
Well, no.
Because when you have people who'd rather believe the most outrageous 'facts' in preference to anything else, they can never, ever be satisfied, as Longrider points out.
As we at Channel 4 have filmed in the area, people have driven by, shouting “parasite” or telling us to “fuck off”. Then, during a recent debate one of the tenants began shouting: “Where is the media? Where has the media been?” And social media offers up powerful stories. A man posts that more than 40 people have been found dead in one of the flats and no one is reporting it.
Because, like the reports of 400 people dead, it's clearly bollocks.
But wait. You're the media. You're professionals! Why are you giving credence to rumours from social media?
We try to stick by the rules – find sources, establish facts. But those rules don’t seem to apply. Our facts look like we’re taking sides. The police statistics and detailed information of how they’ve come to their death toll seem, for now, to add up. The Labour MP David Lammy repeats the story of the flat crowded with bodies on Newsnight. So is it true? Are we missing it? We can find no evidence.
It's David Lammy, FFS! If he announced that the sun was going to come up in the morning, anyone with half a brain would Google it, just to make sure!
Another compelling post says one former resident is being forced to take housing in Preston, Lancashire. It’s categorically denied by the Grenfell Response Team set up to deal with the crisis and we can’t find the tenant or anyone who knows them. Yet Emma Dent Coad, the new MP for Kensington, speaks about it in interviews and it makes headlines in the papers and is dangerous currency on the ground.
Then do your job and start reporting on the way the left-of-centre politicians are seemingly intent on whipping up a mob, instead of publishing endless stories about what someone's cousin from the office saw on Facebook about Grenfell Tower!
It's no wonder people are starting to lose any sympathy they one might have had...
...in one of the many practical mistakes of the relief effort, residents were forced to spend their days traipsing across town to get the help they needed, to get the Oyster cards, and passports that will allow them to start living again.
Now they must do the phoning to chase a home or, more chillingly, to get the information about what is left of their loved ones on the ninth, the 15th or the 23rd floor.
Still, what are they complaining about?
Simon Muller was appalled when his son Liam, a year seven student at Brighton Aldridge Community Academy (BACA), told him pupils would be put in isolation if they did not wear trousers and a shirt.
Last month temperatures reached up to 30 degrees Celsius in Sussex, so Mr Muller felt the need to question his son’s school.
Mr Muller, 34, said: “I get a list of items of clothing that I have to pay for out of my own money each year, and there are school P.E shorts included in it.
“If it is part of the uniform, why can’t he wear it to keep himself cool?
Because it's for PE. Not for the classroom.
I could understand if they had a Nike tick on or something, but they don’t.
“I don’t want to wake up to the news one morning that a child has died because of overheating due to a stupid uniform policy.”
