Tweet Of The Month

Quote Of The Month

Longrider on the futility of government attempts to force us all to buy electric vehicles: 

"I know I’ve mentioned it here before, but my Renault dealer faced exactly this problem. I was just one of many regular buyers who decided to keep what I had rather than be forced to buy a milk float. If the new Renault 5 had a decent petrol engine and sporty performance (RS version), they would have had a deal. As it is, all-electric means a hard pass from me. Now I have the facilities in place to install a charger if I want to. I don’t want to. I do not want to buy what amounts to a massive battery that causes the whole vehicle to become obsolete once the battery is worn out. I don’t want to have to spend ages charging when I can refuel a petrol car in a matter of minutes, and despite some gains in range, it still isn’t close to where it needs to be and is unlikely to ever become so."

"

Post Title Of The Month

 From Tim Worstall, some economic prediction:

Blog Quote Of The Month

From Chris Snowdon's site, this interesting anecdote:

Post Of The Month

 Bucko on the conundrum of bias in music. 

'We Only Respect SOME Australian Cultures'

A convicted murderer serving a life sentence in Australia has lost his bid to overturn a ban on prisoners consuming Vegemite - the salty yeast-based spread that has become a national symbol. Andre McKechnie argued that the ban, in place since 2006, denied him the right to "enjoy his culture as an Australian".

You should have been an aboriginal, the authorities would have shit themselves at the thoughts your culture had been disrespected! Why is it banned anyway?

Authorities in the state of Victoria say inmates may use the strong-smelling paste to disguise contraband substances or to brew alcohol behind bars.

Ah.  Well, better than eating the stuff I guess....

And on Monday, a Supreme Court judge rejected McKechnie's appeal, saying the prisoner's "cultural rights are limited primarily by the fact he has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment".

As is only right. And as should apply to all in this position, not just some! 

Clearly Not A Friend Of The Whole Family!

A man has been charged over the alleged attack on Australian MP Helen Haines on Monday.A 43-year-old remains in custody and will appear in court on Wednesday. Here's a recap of what we know:

'We' being the mainstream media, who like everyone else these day, has realised that social media is where everyone goes to for the real news these days.... 

The suspect has not been formally identified, but he was named by local media as Brendan Nugent.His father, Rod, says he and his partner were friends with Helen Haines "for more than 20 years", and calls the attack "devastating and unfathomable"

Victorian independent MP Helen Haines was at the opening of a dog park in Mansfield on Monday, out and about in her sprawling electorate of Indi, talking to locals and moving freely. Later in the afternoon, at 3.35pm, she was unpacking a car outside her electorate office in Wangaratta when a man understood to be known to authorities struck her with his car. He allegedly completed a U-turn when he saw Haines. What happened will urgently change how MPs assess their personal safety, not least because local settings are no longer free from danger.

’Known to the authorities’, God, I’m so sick of that term! It usually means 'Yes, we know they are a danger but we can't be bothered to do anything about it yet, because it's less work for us when they finally kill someone...'

There is much we don’t know about what has happened, including the motivation of the alleged attacker. But a dark tide of threats and abuse has been rising.

For years, federal politicians have had an ominous sense that something was shifting in Australia’s national life.

You mean, when politician ignore the desires of their constituents to persue their own diametrically opposed agenda, there may be anger?  You don't say! 

Long having warned against the growing intensity of political debate, Albanese reflected the grave shock of the country in the hours after the incident. Human rights commission says ‘violence has no place in our society’ after alleged attack. Along with the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, Albanese revealed that recorded threats against politicians numbered more than 1,067 last financial year, as the cohort of office holders requiring around-the-clock close personal protection grew.

And it's not just the Land Down Under.... 

But the alleged attack on Haines shows something rapidly being lost in our politics. The shift in sentiment can no longer be dismissed as social media noise or harmless comment.

More needs to be done to stop a normalisation of violence and gratuitous insults. That includes the importation of rhetoric from the US and Europe, like calls for politicians to be locked up or harmed for their decisions. The politicians dishing out verbal attacks themselves, or inciting individuals to hate online, must be held accountable.

Would that be the Left wing ones as well?  Or do they still get a pass...?

I'm Conflicted, Here...

A van driver has been jailed for three-and-a-half years after deliberately running over a cyclist who spat at him.His face showed little reaction as his van mounted on top of the cyclist's body.

I'm surprised the police charged him, given the awful fuss they make when they are spat on. C'mon, be consistent, is it the worst assault in the world, or not?

Woolwich Crown Court heard Okotie was delivering blood products to a south London hospital when he moved his van into the left lane 'seemingly without looking' and came close to the man on his bike in New Cross Road in March 2024. At the next set of traffic lights, the cyclist spat in Okotie's direction, which 'went through the open driver's window', the court heard.

Probably done this before, and got away within it, as shock and disgust rooted the driver to the spot. But Okotie was made of sterner stuff.

Okotie, 44, who mentors young people to keep them out of violence, was found guilty of grievous bodily harm with intent last week.

Today, he was sentenced to three years and six months but was not banned from driving.

I personally wouln't have convicted. 

In a victim statement, the cyclist said that the attack had made him 'more cautious of people'.

Good! Maybe that'll make him a better ayclist!  

Then You'll Have More Cases Like These Ones. Is That What You Want?

Effective policing depends upon inclusivity. If you are committed to policing by consent that stands or falls on the trust of all communities, you cannot do without it.

You'll have to, because you’ve lost it irrecoverably. 

London is the world’s greatest and most diverse and globally connected city. Nine million people live here. Hundreds of languages are spoken. The scale and complexity of policing London today is unlike anything Sir Robert Peel imagined when founding the Metropolitan police. Yet, in 1829, he recognised that policing success in a democracy relies on public approval, respect and cooperation as much as on “impartial service to the law”.

We cannot be effective if large sections of society do not trust us, do not work with us, or do not see policing as a service that understands their experiences.

Well, I think some of them understand it only too well. 

An inclusive workforce is not a public relations exercise.

Except when it is, and subesequntly goes badly wrong! As it did only too recently.

It makes us better at protecting victims, catching criminals and preventing crime.

We cannot police London effectively without the trust and confidence of the communities we serve.

Stop thinking of them as many disparate 'communities' then and start thinking of them - and treating them under the law - as Londoners.  

By listening to people’s lived experiences and working in partnership with communities, we can build stronger relationships and greater legitimacy. This is particularly important when using police powers, including stop and search, where fairness, empathy and accountability are essential to maintaining public confidence and keeping London safe.

But it never works as intended, does it, Rowley?  

Nice 'Work' If You Can Get It...

Wade through all the jargon and word salad in the new 12-page mission statement and you might think you'd stumbled across a Green Party manifesto or a blog by Greta Thunberg. It talks of 'proudly cross-cutting strategic ambitions of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Climate Action'. There is a lot about 'justice' – climate, racial, social and economic justice, that is.

🥱 

Yet this is a document issued by a 700-year-old City of London charity with a very specific role: to maintain all the Square Mile's non-rail bridges over the River Thames. These include one of Britain's most famous landmarks, Tower Bridge. And, because it has £1.5 billion in the bank, the charity does all this at zero cost to the taxpayer.

Well, great! Then why should we care how it wastes it’s money..? 

Whopping grants to outfits such as Spectra CIC (£1 million to help it 'build capacity in the trans and sex-worker sector') or Race On The Agenda (£1.5 million to 'combat racial injustice'), may assist a subset of London life. But is it too much to ask a charity set up to maintain bridges to, well, maintain a few more bridges?

Maybe safeguarding the infrastructure of our capital city shouldn’t be something we are reliant on a charity for? Maybe it should be brought back into government control like all the other bridges not covered by this shower?

This all raises broader questions. Whose money is it anyway? And who voted for this stuff? The cash belongs to the people of London, whose antecedents paid all those tolls to cross the river. And over centuries the fund has grown into a vast investment portfolio.

And the people who paid those tolls are long dead and so don't have a claim on the money.

No one is suggesting the City Bridge Foundation had any idea of a possible Hamas link. However, it all adds to the impression of an organisation with more money than it knows what to do with. As well as appointing its own poet in residence, for example, it pays each one of its 29 staff more than £60,000 a year.

I really don't care, not when government and local councils are squandering my taxes willy-nilly. I just wish I earned that much for not doing my job.