Treating People Like Beasts...

A post on the unfortunate incident of the Aborigine with the Taser over at ‘Angry Exile’s blog came to mind at the weekend.

He writes about the paternalistic attitude of the Aussie authorities to Aborigine communities:

But as annoying as that is the other situation, that of no booze zones because of the amount of alcohol abuse among some indigenous Australians, is if anything even worse. Not only is it paternalistic and borderline racist - I know it's the wrong country but it smacks of White Man's Burden to me - but what effect is it having? Well, since they're going to be hassled by the police for having alcohol some choose to sniff petrol instead, and that brings us full circle to some poor bastard jerking to the rhythm of the Taser while trying to put out the fire on his chest. A further complication is that I'm told that some alcohol bans in and around Aboriginal communities have been brought in at the request of the communities themselves. Now that made me rethink the situation. Isn't it equally patronizing to suggest that the Elders of a community aren't able to decide what should and shouldn't go on there? Isn't it just like a home owner asking people not to smoke in his house, and expecting them to comply or go outside? I can't help but feel that there's probably a middle ground here, and scaling up that home owner example might be roughly the direction to take. But it's a bit of a minefield and all I know for certain is that banning booze in public areas is not an answer. At best you move the problem on to somewhere else and at worst you end up with people abusing more dangerous substances that you can't so easily ban and can't readily police if you try.

The reason it came to mind at the weekend was because I happened to see, in the ‘Telegraph’, the most stunningly racist photo I’ve ever seen.

It was a group of tribesmen clustered round a car, underneath a honking great sign saying (in terms usually reserved for warnings about bears at Yosemite) that tourists should not feed them, offer them rides in cars, etc.

These were people. And yet, the sign treated them as less than human. And apparantly 'for their own good'. Their own good, of course, being defined as what the 'Oh! Native cultures are so wonderful!' crowd decided for them.

I can’t find it in the online edition, but this article describes the situation:

Over the last decade, the number of tourist trips into their jungle reserve has grown so rapidly that critics say it increasingly resembles a human safari park. An array of notices at the entrance to the forest instructs visitors not to stop or allow the Jarawa into their vehicles, not to take photographs - and not to feed the tribesmen or to give them clothing.

Because these people aren’t to be treated as people, capable of deciding for themselves: ‘Sod the loincloth and spears – I want an iPod!’. They are to be treated as pets, or worse than pets – as animals in a reserve, to be forced to maintain their ‘native culture’ whether they like it or not.

Seriously, how is it that anyone who claims to be ‘anti-racist’ isn’t up in arms over this?

Meanwhile, what concerns the right-on union warriors over here in the UK?

Well, according to Pavlov’s Cat, this sort of thing:

Unison took action against its members, including the Greenwich branch's Onay Kasab and Bromley’s Glenn Kelly, after they produced a leaflet showing the three wise monkeys from a Japanese proverb, with the caption "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".

The leaflet criticised the union for a lack of debate at its national conference in 2007, but the four were told by union chiefs some people could find the image racially offensive.

/golfclap.

Well done, lads. Obviously, we have no more real or pressing problems with race in this country. As Pavlov puts it:

So 'some people could' , but nobody did , did they ? or you could bet these guys feet would not have touched the ground if an actual complaint had been made.

Indeed…

Multiculturalism In Action...

Police said one of the attackers was described as a light-skinned, mixed-race man, about 19 years old, 6ft tall and of an athletic build. He had short, dark-brown hair and was wearing a black, short-sleeved T-shirt and black bottoms.

The second attacker was described as Asian, aged around 14, about 5ft 4in tall and fat. He was wearing black clothing.

The driver of the car, which was possibly a five-door vehicle with tinted rear windows, was described as white, aged 17 to 18, of a wiry build with light-coloured, crew-cut hair.

Another member of the group was a black girl, aged around 14, about 5ft 2in tall, thin and with her hair tied back in a braid.

How diverse! How wonderfully vibrant ...

More Wind Turbines In A Spin…

Things are looking bleaker and bleaker for wind-freaks:

Europe's largest onshore windfarm project has been thrown in severe doubt after the RSPB and official government agencies lodged formal objections to the 150-turbine plan, it emerged today.

Oh, dear…

The RSPB heavily criticised the proposal from Viking Energy after initially indicating it could support the scheme. The RSPB also claims now that installation of the turbines could release significant carbon dioxide from the peat bogs affected, undermining the turbines' potential to combat global warming.

The group's fears have been endorsed by the government's official conservation advisers, Scottish Natural Heritage, and SNH has also objected to the "magnitude" of the scheme, claiming it could kill many of these birds through collisions with the 145-metre-high structures.

Eco-freaks vs twitchers. This could get nasty!

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), which oversees pollution and waste laws in Scotland, has also formally objected, making it inevitable the scheme will now go to a full public inquiry and intensifying pressure on the developers to alter the scale of the project.

All those government departments joining in the fightback.

This won’t go down well when The Millipede comes back from his hols:

Miliband has said that climate change poses a greater threat to landscapes than windfarms and that opposing them should be "socially unacceptable".

Heh…

Meanwhile, over on the Isle of Wight, some watermelons are learning a lesson in harsh economic reality:

They were given a slice of pizza, an apple and a can of fizzy drink; then the workers holed up inside a wind turbine plant on the Isle of Wight noticed something nasty lurking inside their food parcels.

More than a week into their wildcat occupation of the Vestas Wind Systems plant 11 workers opened letters from the management telling them they had been sacked with immediate effect and without compensation.

Well, yes, that happens when you go on strike and occupy your employers property. Welcome to the real world…

Lawyers for Vestas, which plans to shift production of turbine blades to the US, are due to seek a repossession order for the factory in court .

Meanwhile, environmental activists are heading to the island to lend their support in a dispute which has become a symbol of the UK's apparent inability to push through a major expansion in wind power despite the government's recently restated support for the technology.

Numbers joining the "red-green" protests could be significantly boosted after 15,000 people who had bought tickets for the Big Green Gathering festival in Somerset this weekend – cancelled at short notice due to licensing problems – were urged by activists to go to the Isle of Wight instead.

Hippies incoming!

The Dave won’t be pleased to hear this either:

Research published this week by Greenpeace showed that Conservative-run local councils had turned down more than three times as many windfarms as they approved between December 2005 and November 2008. Labour-controlled councils approved marginally more projects than they turned down.

Hmm, it seems that ‘green’ pie in the sky is all very well, until the time comes to make those big decisions. The ones that might result in your removal from office by fed-up voters…

In yet another blow to the technology's spread in the UK, the chief executive of BP reiterated today that the energy giant would not invest in windfarms here.

Tony Hayward said the company preferred to focus on the US.

Stick ‘em outside Congress! There’s plenty of wind generated there…

I Can Think Of Plenty Of Better Reasons To Sack BBC Executives...

…’Survivors’ and ‘The One Show’ being just two of them.

But according to new hire Patrick Younge (yes, if that name rings a bell, you’ll see why in a minute), not bowing to the racemongers should be the only one:

One of the BBC’s top black executives has called for TV bosses to be sacked if they fail to meet racial diversity targets.
Patrick Younge, who is set to take over at BBC Vision, the corporation’s programme-making section, claimed there was not enough ‘internal pressure’ for change.

He has said the targets should be treated like financial aims, suggesting that if bosses miss them they should pay the consequences.

‘Not enough internal pressure for change’ means that the bosses demand it, but the people who actually do the job think they are idiots who don’t know what they are talking about.

And they are probably right:

His comments may be particularly embarrassing for the corporation’s top executives – as the BBC has failed to hit its own targets.

This year’s annual report showed it set a figure of 12.5 per cent of staff to come from black and minority backgrounds, but managed 12.1 per cent.

Its record for top staff was worse – it hoped to get 7 per cent of senior managers from this group but ended up with 5.6 per cent.

Someone remind me again what the breakdown is for ethnic minorities in UK society?

It was announced last month that Mr Younge, whose brother Gary writes for the Guardian, was re-joining the BBC after working for the Travel Channel in America since 2005.

Oh, yeah. He’s related to that Gary Younge.

Excellent!

One chippy racemonger in the paper-based MSM, one in the broadcast MSM…

Mr Younge, who will look after shows such as Top Gear and Doctor Who, suggested ITV was one of the worst offenders on the issue.

He told Broadcast magazine: ‘As far as I am aware, ITV doesn’t have one black or Asian commissioning editor and it really shows.’

It does?

How..?

Because as Dumb Jon and North Northwester point out, their output isn't exactly that different to the Beeb's exciting, diverse, surprising line up...

Who Are You Going To Believe? Scientists, Or Your Lyin’ Eyes?

Last week, a North East mum was furious after her five-year-old was labelled “overweight” by an NHS measurement programme based on BMI results.

Beth Coates, of Dudley, near Cramlington, claimed BMI was inaccurate for the changing bodies of under-12s, and rubbished figures that placed her son Antonio in the top one per cent of obese children.

My mind conjured up (given that the 'top one per cent' sounds like the very worst example) a mini landwhale, eyes like two raisins in dough, wearing grown man t-shirts and struggling to breathe and walk unaided.

Well, there’s a picture of the lad in the newspaper, and if he’s obese, I’m a banana.

Never mind being in the top one per cent of the obese range, he’s pretty normal for a young boy.

His mother said she feared it could prompt worried parents into starting children on unhealthy and draconian diets.

Ms Coates said: “If wasn’t strong in myself I might start to think I was doing something wrong and start to deny Antonio food. It could give children serious eating disorders. I don’t want Antonio growing up thinking he is obese when he is not.”

Good for you! To hell with the scientists - only someone with an eating disorder themselves could look at this chap and proclaim him even 'chubby'.

Of course, no-one had actually observed the child. This was yet another 'diagnosis by tickbox'.

And when the child's mother had the temerity to question the wisdom of this, she was basically told she didn't know what she was talking about:

But Dr Ashley Adamson, a senior lecturer at the Human Nutrition Research Centre at Newcastle University, warned that our perceptions of what “overweight” means has changed. And while athletes were an extreme case, she said that BMI was still an accurate and reliable measure for the majority of people.

“We did a study of 500 children in the North East, using four of the most sophisticated measures of body fat, and we found that it tallied very well with the simple BMI scores,” Dr Adamson said.

Put down your charts and graphs and figures and take a look at this boy, genius. If he's classed as in the top one per cent of obese children, something's very wrong.

“Parents read the statistics about childhood obesity and say they don’t see that in the playground.

“But scientists have measured them, and 69% of children are overweight or obese. Our perceptions of what ‘fat’ looks like have shifted.”

Oh, please!

Take a look at the photo of the lad. If you maintain that your figures prove him ‘obese’, then you need to relook at your figures.

Any fat on that child is designed to be there. It’s called ‘puppy fat’ and you cannot measure a growing child on the same scale as an adult. One size does NOT fit all.

She added: “What we need is more support for parents. Many don’t have an accurate image of what weight children should be.”

They know if the child can’t run, jump, play or see their toes they are overweight, dangerously so. Everything else will be cured by that most egalitarian of cures – growing up…

Conservatives In ‘Doing Their Job’ Shock!

At least some Conservatives have retained their principles of fair play (though I’m sure the wrath of The Dave will descend soon as he tries to keep in with the in-crowd):

More than a thousand gipsy and traveller children have been given laptop computers to help them with their schoolwork.

The free equipment and wireless internet access is estimated to be worth up to £750 per pupil, and is costing the taxpayer £300,000 a year.

(…speechless…)

Some children are also being handed printers and digital cameras under a controversial Government-backed scheme aimed at encouraging them to stay in education.

Should that be their parent’s job?

Oh, but we’ll see later that no, it isn’t…

Last night, the Conservatives, who obtained the figures, warned that the scheme risked fuelling resentment among taxpayers. Only days ago it emerged that gipsy and traveller children are being given priority admission to popular state schools.

In addition, gipsy and traveller families are getting priority to see GPs and dentists.

Quite. Nothing annoys ‘Middle England’ so much as unfairness. Particularly when they are expected to pay for it…

Studies have shown that children who relocate regularly quickly become demotivated with learning and disengaged with their school friends and school life. In addition, many traveller parents provide little support for their children's academic learning, with a small number believing that formal education offers little or no value to their children's futures.

So, it’s the fault of their lifestyle? Should they be expected, then, to change their lifestyle, at least while their children as school age?

To do otherwise would be…well, deliberately disadvantaging their children, wouldn’t it?

Tory local government spokesman Bob Neill said: 'However well-meaning, I am concerned the Government's policies on travellers threaten to undermine community cohesion and inflame community tensions.

'The British people believe in fair play - it's not fair that one small group get privileged access to public services, whilst hard-working families who struggle to pay their bills and taxes are pushed to the back of the queue.'

Can’t argue with that…

Judge In ‘Telling The Truth’ Shock!

Hmm, I think someone will be having a word with Judge Ian Trigger in the near future:

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants come to Britain just to get welfare benefits, a senior judge declared yesterday.

Judge Ian Trigger said the cost of the handouts has helped to double the national debt.

Oh, I can hear the screams from the progressives as I type…

He spoke out as he gave a two-year jail sentence to a Jamaican drug minder who disappeared from the notice of immigration authorities after claiming asylum.

He told Lucien McClearley, 31, at Liverpool Crown Court: 'Your case illustrates all too clearly the completely lax immigration policy that exists and has existed over recent years.'

Sentencing McClearley, he added: 'People like you, and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people like you, come to these shores to avail themselves of the generous welfare benefits that exist here.

'In the past ten years the national debt of this country has risen to extraordinary heights, largely because central Government has wasted billions of pounds. Much of that has been wasted on welfare payments.

'For every £1 that the decent citizen, who is hard-working, pays in taxes, nearly 10 per cent goes on servicing that national debt. That is twice the amount it was in 1997 when this Government came to power.'

Ouch!

That last one, in particular, may get him into trouble, as it could be said that it was overtly political, which is frowned on in judicial circles, isn’t it?

So, how did this cunning master criminal escape the talons of the Immigration authorities anyway?

McClearley arrived legally in Britain in November 2001 on a visitor's visa.

He was arrested in October 2002 after it ran out but claimed asylum and was released while this was being processed.

He then 'disappeared from the radar of the authorities', the court heard. His application was rejected in 2004 but he was only arrested this February after police stopped a car he was driving and noticed it smelled of cannabis.

Oh.

By hiding in plain sight, while absolutely no-one bothered to look for him, then?

Never mind ‘disappearing’ from the radar, the authorities never apparently switched the radar system on in the first place!

Missing The Point Spectacularly…

Yes, it’s another one of these stories:

Television and radio presenter Nicky Campbell's mother was banned from taking photographs of his children at a swimming pool.

She’s pretty forthright in her complaint.

'The attendant was adamant that I had to stop. He might have taken away my camera. I must say, it is a sign that we are living in a nanny state.'

It is indeed.

Can you expect some help from your famous son?

Mr Campbell, who presents BBC One's Watchdog and the Breakfast show on Radio 5 Live, said: 'I am sorry.... I don't think my mother looks like a paedophile or a terrorist.

'She is from an era when such things were acceptable.

/headdesk

Newsflash for you, Nicky. It still is acceptable!

And if people told the petty little Hitlers where to get off, and informed them that if they tried to confiscate their camera, they’d see them (and their employers) in court for theft, as they have no legal powers to do so, we could nip this madness in the bud.

Will no-one stand up for themselves any more?

A spokesman for Edinburgh Leisure that runs the swimming pool denied there was a wholesale ban on photography, claiming staff took a 'common sense approach'.

Ah ha ha ha ha!

Who knew Edinburgh Leisure would join in with ‘Silly Week’?

The Police Are Revolting!

But in a good way:

Scores of Scotland Yard officers are in open revolt after being banned from wearing Union Flag badges in support of British troops.

Met chiefs have decreed that the tiny emblems – which cost £1 with proceeds going to charity – must be removed after a complaint that they are offensive.

To whom? And why?

The report doesn’t say, only that ‘a complaint’ was received. So one malicious or ignorant little troublemaker gets to set policy for the Met?

A petition has been launched on the Downing Street website demanding they be allowed to wear the badges, which are to raise funds for the Royal British Legion and the Help for Heroes charity.

Good! I’ll be signing it, and I’ve put the link at the foot of this post.

Peter Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: ‘The decision to forbid police officers from joining the rest of the country in showing support for those who are fighting for their country is nothing less than shameful.’

And it looks like some police, at least, have finally had enough.

Officers at Heathrow were also ordered to take down a Union Flag hoisted on June 27 – Armed Forces Day – because it was not an ‘approved ensign’. Strict rules are in place about when the Union Flag can be flown at individual police stations.

Mr Smyth added: ‘These orders from senior officers are legal and must be obeyed. They are, however, also completely crass.’

Not only that, they damage the reputation of the police and increase the number of civilians who no longer view them as ‘our police’ but rather as representatives of an increasingly out-of-touch ruling elite.

Because their double-standards have been noticed…

Mr Smyth said senior officers routinely turn a blind eye to constables wearing gay pride ribbons when they go on marches.

Well, of course they do! Those are favoured causes, and as such, are exempt from ‘the rules’.

More evidence of this is in the flag dispute:

In February, Scotland Yard was hit by another row over political correctness after the Union Flag hanging outside a police station was replaced by a gay rights flag to mark Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) history month.

This is despite Met rules stating that only the Union Flag and its own flag can fly from force buildings.

So, rules are only there until politically inconvenient, and they can then be dispensed with, while maintaining them for causes that are not politically convenient.

How..convenient….

The Downing Street petition is here.

Update: They've backed down.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has made an "exception" to the force's dress code by allowing officers to display union jack badges.

Sir Paul's intervention came after about 2,700 people signed an online petition on the Number 10 website.

"Life clocks are a lie! Carousel is a lie! There is no renewal!"

Mixed feelings about this move:

The Royal College of Nursing is to meet Scottish MP Margo MacDonald to discuss proposals on legalising assisted suicide after the organisation dropped its five-year opposition to the policy.

MacDonald, who has Parkinson's disease, is planning to introduce a bill to legalise assisted suicide in Scotland in the autumn.

It seems there’s a movement afoot to ‘normalise’ this, supported by polls:

The move comes as a poll found that 74% of people want doctors to be allowed to help terminally ill people end their lives.

The survey in today's Times found that six out of 10 people said they wanted friends and relatives to be able to help their dying loved ones to take their own lives, without fear of prosecution.

However, while I can’t say that I think those who take their relatives abroad to Dignitas should be prosecuted (far from it) I’m wary of this becoming the norm. And I’m not alone.

The Christian Nurses and Midwives organisation said today it regretted the RCN's policy shift. Secretary Steve Fouch said it sent out the wrong signals "at a time when there is growing anxiety about how we will care for the elderly and severely disabled in the future".

Their statement will be pooh-poohed as ‘religious scaremongering’. But there’s a grain of truth to it.

Because a glance across the Channel to the continent will show this has already been experienced in the Netherlands:

Euthanasia critics have talked about the "slippery slope" as a possibility; in the Netherlands, it is a fact.

Many old people now fear Dutch hospitals. More than 10% of senior citizens who responded to a recent survey, which did not mention euthanasia, volunteered that they feared being killed by their doctors without their consent. One senior-citizen group printed up wallet cards that tell doctors that the cardholder opposes euthanasia.

Is this just panic and scaremongering? Can it be dismissed as ‘something that can’t happen here’?

Well, we are on the right road to it:

What makes the Dutch comfortable with euthanasia? One factor is that their doctors became comfortable with it. "The Dutch have got so far so fast because right from the beginning, they have had the medical profession on their side," Derek Humphrey, founder of the Hemlock Society, told the Toronto Globe and Mail last September. "Until we get a significant part of the medical profession on our side, we won't get very far."

So, how has this gained such a grip on the doctors?

Glad you asked:

How did Dutch doctors change their thinking so dramatically in the space of one lifetime?

The path to the death culture began when doctors learned to think like accountants. As the cost of socialized medicine in the Netherlands grew, doctors were lectured about the importance of keeping expenses down.

In many hospitals, signs were posted indicating how much old-age treatments cost taxpayers. The result was a growing "social pressure" from doctors and others, says Arno Heltzel, a spokesman for the Catholic Union of the Elderly, the largest Dutch senior-citizen group, which favors voluntary euthanasia. "Old people have to excuse themselves for living. When they say that all of their friends are dead, people say, 'Maybe it is time for you to go too,' rather than, 'You need to find new friends.' "

I bet NICE has some of those posters ready to go to the printers already…

Anyone want to try to argue that this won’t happen here, if the bureaucrats get involved?