Diversity?

Now, I don't believe everything I read in The Daily Mail...but should this couple be allowed to foster children?

OK, OK, a picture is not enough to go on!

But...Mr & Mrs Matherick have three grown-up children of their own, have fostered 28 children and most recently have fostered an 11-year-old boy for two years.

Oh, and Mr M is a school governor. They sound quite suitable to me....

However...

... they are committed Christians, which is to say an increasingly persecuted minority in the UK.

Anyway, as such, when social workers from Somerset County Council told them that they would be required to discuss same-sex relationships with children as young as 11 and tell them that gay partnerships were just as acceptable as heterosexual marriages, they - very sensibly!! - refused.

After all, faggotry reduces your average life expectancy - through HIV/AIDS and suicide, etc - and increases your morbidity - through STIs, genital warts, rectal ruptures, injuries to the penis, urinary infections, neurosis (depression and anxiety) etc.... Putting aside the moral issues, the 'gay' lifestyle is not equivalent to hetero-sexual marriage: it reduces your health, your lifespan and your happiness, and there is nothing to recommend it. Some are 'born' 'gay': others are borderline, and they can be discouraged or even cured by behavioural therapy and/or moral exhortation

But never mind the evidence....As a result of the Matherick's stance, the boy they were successfully fostering will be placed immediately in a council hostel - after all, he is in danger of contamination with non-PC attitudes! - and they will no longer be given children to look after. Which is a tragedy, when there is a national shortage of foster parents. (Perhaps - *irony alert* - we just need to increase the abortion rate?)

Apparently, Labour's new Sexual Orientation Regulations, part of the Equality Act 2006, makes discrimination on the grounds of sexuality illegal....

[Well, if that does not get you lurkers commenting, what will? Please don't expect a prompt response from me: I'm off to Bilbao this weekend to subsidise my student daughter, and my dear father-in-law has had a massive stroke...Ho-hum!]

Introspection

Positive thought for the day


When you feel that nobody loves you,
Nobody cares for you,
Everyone is ignoring you,
You should really ask yourself......


Am I an arsehole ?

Woman Filmed Dropping-Kicking KItten

'Free' housing, 'free' schooling, 'free' healthcare and welfare subsidies - she's from Gateshead - apparently results in a moral vacuum in which this cretin does a Jonny Wilkinson with a kitten. At least, the Guardianistas can rejoice that feminism has produced equal opportunity acts of savagery.

Note how she seems quite pleased with herself. Curious asymmetry to her face, by the way.

Britain is sickliest nation in Europe

'Free' healthcare on demand creates a disincentive to care for one's own health. Welfare statism encourages dependency and discourages self-reliance, and an obese state not only morally corrupts but also encourages obesity in its clients.

Another Reason to Emigrate (Apart From The Weather)

'Professor Rowthorn says immigration is currently adding 205,000 to the population every year. Migrants are mostly young and many start families here. These two factors alone, he said, would take the population to 77 million by 2074...

He told a House of Lords committee: "Large-scale immigration is of minor economic benefit to the existing population of the UK as a whole, although it is certainly of benefit to the immigrants, their families and sometimes their countries of origin." '

The free movement of people within Europe, North America and the old Commonwealth does not bother me. But, not to put too fine a point on it, Muslim immigration to the UK scares the shi-ite out of me!

Sat Nav

If I use my Sat Nav to drive from Sheringham in Norfolk to Swaffham, it tells me to double back at one point. If I do, it tells me to turnaround; so I could go around an endless loop, if I obeyed the wretched thing. However, like most people, I regard Sat Nav as a tool to be used with maps, road signs and commonsense. Yet, apparently, some people obey it blindly! I believe the time has come to introduce a basic intelligence test into the driving test - eg a passage of unseen Greek, which would soon revitalise the teaching of classical languages and also reduce road accidents.

Rain, Heavenly, Bombs...

... on Cleaner, Safer, Greener Slough,
It isn't fit for bonfires now!
(With apologies to Betjeman)

'Elf 'n' Savetee? Possibly; but some local people "wonder if it is a ploy to have fireworks only so the event is more inclusive to Slough's ethnically diverse population celebrating the Hindu event of Diwali."

The Council, though it has no overall control (approx. 19 Labour, 9 Lib Dems, 1 UKIP, 6 Conservatives and 7 Independents), is pink in hue and definitely multi-racial, if not (bullshit alert! contradiction in terms!) "multi-cultural". See a list of Members here.

Great News

Those who remember the lively and (vo)luminous traffic on Melanie Phillips' blog when she still had a commentary box will be delighted to know that she now has a new blogpad on The Speccie webpage. Hurrah! It seems she will also maintain her own space on melaniephillips.com for those who are set in their ways or just lurkers. Or even those who refuse to read the Speccie in principle.

"Unprecedented Outbreak of Ticks and Fleas"

Climate change? Warm summers?

Parasites thrive in the cosy conditions of big government and public subsidy.

And devolution creates more of the blood-suckers.

Whoever needed more politicians?

Fucking Amazing!

Apparently, swearing at work, in certain circumstances, can relieve stress, which perhaps explains the existence of swear blogs that say little or nothing.

Psst...*Just please don't tell Frank P, OK?*

Lezzers and Gays are NOT Predatory...

Not lezzers, anyway.

Unless a woman(29) wears a girl's (13) pink panties...

Another left-liberal myth bites the dust...

Or was it love, perhaps?

Double jeopardy - post mortem.

Yesterday at the increasingly bizarre Old Bailey trial, relating to the Stockwell execution of Jean Charles de Menezes, evidence was adduced that the victim of this harrowing arsehole-to-breakfast-time cock-up by London's finest may have, sometime before his death, taken cocaine.

Now - there was a time when that sort of evidence would have been precluded by any Judge in pre-trial instructions to both prosecution and defence counsel. Why has it been allowed to be put before a jury and at who's instigation - the prosecution lawyers or the defence lawyers? Surely the only relevant substances present in the body of Mr de Menezes that are of any relevance whatsoever to this case are the seven lumps of lead that were unceremoniously injected into his head by his executioner.

Is it being suggested that a police officer(?)can be exonerated for whacking a suspected terrorist on an underground train if it later transpires that the person was mistakenly identified but had, in the past, (perhaps) contravened Dangerous Drugs legislation?

"Ooops! Sorry! Thought he was a terrorist ... what? He was a junkie? No sweat then, eh?"

Jesus wept! Well one of the firearms officers giving evidence did anyway. Hardly surprising!

Mendacious Mullahs

Melanie Phillips performs a wonderful fisking of the open letter from 38 Islamic 'scholars' to Papa Razzi requesting 'peace in our time'. I wonder how many Chamberlins will stand in line to wave this piece of toilet paper to the hordes of the credulous in the West? Let's hope some of them read Melanie's piece first and avoid the repeat of history in our time.

Nobbled prizes and ignoble conspiracies

Two contradictory events in quick succession sum up the times in which we live: on 11th October it is reported that a High Court Judge, Mr Justice Barton castigated the decision to promulgate Al Gore's convenient (for him) lies to schools in Britain on the grounds that 'it contains nine significant errors in a context of alarmism and exaggeration'; then on 12th October Gore is awarded the Nobel Prize. Behold the beautiful asymmetry of international judicio-political thinking!

Mickey-Mouse Para Police

Unison have suggested today that Community ‘Support’ Officers should have uniforms more like ‘real’ police officers so that the public would give them more respect. It would, they assert, also create the ‘impression’ that there are more police officers on the street than is really the case. Why not just have jack-in-the-box inflatable constables which pop-up at irregular intervals on every street corner from manholes. It would probably be less costly and more effective than employing C’S’Os, particularly if there were male and female replicas of ‘real’ police officers copulating in dark alleyways or dummy police cars.

Moreover, considering the way police forces are ‘performing’ these days, why does Unison think that it would attract more respect for their members? Just the opposite could well obtain.

Anyway, last time I brushed up on the statutes, it was still a serious offence to impersonate a police officer? Perhaps the heads of Unison should be nicked for inciting breaches against Section 90 of the Police Act 1996.

Police act – now there’s an oxymoron if ever there was one – unless of course you’re talking about Sir Ian Blair in the other sense of acting – he should have joined RADA rather than the police force.

Decline of the West: No.5397 (or: Pass the Sick Bag)

A friend of mine recently attended a child’s naming ceremony conducted by a representative of the British Humanist Association (BHA). The celebrant was a member of the BHA, who apparently earns her living by celebrating 'non-religious' rituals.

The readings were (i) the beginning of the Paddington Bear stories (ii) the naming of cats by (ironically, the Anglo-Catholic) T S Eliot; and (iii) a poem – by a mother - on the leaving of the nest.

In place of godparents, there were two ‘special adults’ – a homosexual couple who pledged themselves to provide ‘guidance and sanctuary’.

Personally, I find it incomprehensible that parents should decide not to have their child baptised. The ceremony of baptism is the first sacral stage in a child's induction to the whole context of Western civilisation. As such, baptism is a rejection of barbarism, and it can (and should?) be seen as such even by atheists.

As for the 'special adults', any "guidance" that 'sads' can "provide" is likely to be hedonistic, as 'sads' live for the present and have little or no investment in the future. Nevertheless, perhaps, the unfortunate child will not be without 'hands-on' understanding of the techniques of anal dilation....

No Bottle Brown

Now, when I look upon Our Great Leader I think of faecal impaction: Brown, but not out! And as he refuses to swallow Dr Cameron's electoral laxative, our nation will probably eventually go bust, followed by a short sharp shower of shit over Scotland as the south wind despatches him back to his roots.

Book Review

THE GREAT DECEPTION: Can the European Union Survive?

By

Christopher Booker & Richard North, Second Edition, Continuum, 2005.

I'm Euro-sceptical, but not a Euro-obsessive. Nevertheless, I found this book fascinating - the authors' gripping historical narrative of the gross deception of the British people about 'the construction of Europe' has both style and scholarship.

Even allowing for the (IMO, justifiable) prejudice of the authors, I was utterly amazed by the sheer scale of Edward Heath’s deception and betrayal of the British people in 1973. Not only was he determined to enter on any terms (with utterly disastrous consequences for the UK's fishing [and other] industries), but also he maintained in public that the 'Common Market' was just a free trade area while he was discussing in private economic and monetary union with his euro-colleagues! All quite staggering! Should not traitor Heath should be dug up, stoned and crucified upside down??

Mrs Thatcher did better; but even she could not quite grasp that federalism was an integral part of even the 'Single Market' (which created the most bureaucratised trading area in history). Ultimately, she was betrayed by the obsessive euro-philiacs, Howe and Heseltine. And the Howe/Heseltine/Lawson/Major-led, but all-party, euro-consensus about ERM resulted in economic disaster.

Meanwhile, as the Soviet Union disintegrated, Kohl and Mitterand proposed at an EC summit a billion DM subsidy to the Soviet Union -- plus a guarantee of its borders!!! Mrs Thatcher vetoed both the subsidy and the guarantee of the borders, arguing that the Soviet Union was finished and that the EC should support the fledgling democracies of Eastern Europe and encourage them to join the EC.

In the course of their narrative, the authors point up some delightful ironies - eg that the EEC was pursuing 'ever closer union' even as the Soviet and Yugoslav Unions were dissolving, and that the (now) 'European Union' imposed 'democratic' entry conditions on the former Soviet-occupied states of eastern Europe that even the EU itself did not meet!

Largely ignored by the mainstream press, this book is highly recommended.

For UK Amazon, it's available here.

The Devil's in the detail

Haven't clicked into The Devil's Kitchen blog for a few months (all that bad language makes me blush) but I meandered into it today and found an appraisal of BBC One's Question time last week with which I can only concur entirely, though my blushes reached my toenails while reading it. Even those of you with very tender susceptibilities will find a resonance with the sentiments, I am sure, but I doubt anyone could have expressed them more succinctly, or sincerely. Go on - brighten your weekend, particularly if you are a Ruth Kelly fan.

Of Course, Elephants Never Forget...

I'm usually a bit sceptical about these heartwarming elephant stories, but this one is truly interesting...

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University . On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.

The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe' s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly. Probably wasn't the same elephant....

h/t furriskey

Problem Page Q & A With Wall Street Analysis

QUESTION: What am I doing wrong? Okay, I'm tired of beating around the bush. I'm a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I'm articulate and classy. I'm not from New York. I'm looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don't think I'm overreaching at all. Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 - 250. But that's where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won't get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she's not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level? Here are my questions specifically: - Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars, restaurants, gyms -What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won't hurt my feelings -Is there an age range I should be targeting (I'm 25)? - Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I've seen really 'plain jane' boring types who have nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I've seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What's the story there? - Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows - lawyer, investment banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out? - How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY. Please hold your insults - I'm putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I'm being up front about it. I wouldn't be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn't able to match them - in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

ANSWER: I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament. Firstly, I'm not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here's how I see it. Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a cr@ppy business deal. Here's why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here's the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity...in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won't be getting any more beautiful! So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you're 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you! So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold...hence the rub...marriage. It doesn't make good business sense to "buy you" (which is what you're asking) so I'd rather lease. In case you think I'm being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It's as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage. Separately, I was taught early in my career about efficient markets. So, I wonder why a girl as "articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful" as you has been unable to find your sugar daddy. I find it hard to believe that if you are as gorgeous as you say you are that the $500K hasn't found you, if not only for a tryout. By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then we wouldn't need to have this difficult conversation. With all that said, I must say you're going about it the right way. Classic "pump and dump." I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of lease, let me know.

h/t furriskey

Questions and answers.

When I woke up this morning, clear-headed and optimistic, I looked from my window at the clear azure sky above The Wash and thought, "WTF happened to the Acid Rain doomsday theory? I've used the same overcoat for the last 15 years and it's still as good as new."

Then, as I closed the window to insulate myself against the chill of Autumn, I remembered. "How foolish of me to ponder. It has, of course, been replaced by the Global Warming theory." Such is life.

Christmas bonanza for lawyers

Two show-trial court fiestas are currently in full swing in an attempt to show that ‘democracy’ works in Britain; one at the Old Bailey and one at Royal Courts of Justice..

Both are pointless. The first, the ‘Elf ‘n Safety’ prosecution over the tragic Stockwell debacle, is a double whammy for the tax-payer, a gigantic bill for the trial itself and if the ‘defendant’ viz. the Metropolitan Police, is found guilty, then the resultant fine will be democratically discharged by you and me under the auspices of the Exchequer and/or the Community Charge (or whatever the Rates are called these days). But as Ron Thwaites QC, about the best brief around these days, has been hired by the Met to defend it, then it is unlikely that anyone will be found guilty of anything. Moreover those really responsible for this fatal cock-up will be free to continue with their salaries, promotions and pensions with impunity. Even the sacrificial lamb will no doubt find his carcass in some sinecure suitable for those who take the fall for their superiors. It’s all sub judice at present so the MSM are keeping their powder dry, but what’s emerging already looks even worse than I deduced from my armchair within two hours on the day of the of the original event. The ‘bleeding obvious’ admittedly, but the Commissioner insists that it took about two days for him to realise from his hi-tech glass palace operations centre – that a a fuck-up of high proportions had occurred, involving everyone involved, from from bottom to top - and the horrific death of an innocent man to boot. Really? A very black day indeed for ‘the world’s best police force.’

As for the second charade – how much more has to be spent to pander to a Gypo international con-man-cum-part-time-grocer who, after unsuccessfully trying to insinuate himself the circles of the Great and Good for years and years, by bunging politicians, eventually pimped his son into an ex-royal whacko liaison and then inadvertently brought it to a sensational end by ordering his drunken hotel chauffeur to drive their getaway car from his Paris hotel to avoid the paparazzi. Unfortunately instead of getting away, said driver crunched it at very high speed in a Parisian tunnel, killing himself and the ‘lovers’ while badly mangling her bodyguard. Since then the old schemer has continued bunging more of his ill-gotten gains to a bunch of charlatans to cook up a conspiracy theory so far out of the tree it wouldn’t get past a junior manuscript reader in a pulp-fiction publishing house, never mind justify its consideration by a court of law.

Happy Christmas you legal eagles. Fill your boots! The people-punters will pick up the tab. Cheers.

Australian Freeze on African Refugees

A freeze on the settlement of refugees from Africa - including those from Sudan's Darfur region - has been announced by the Australian government. Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said the refugees had trouble integrating, and other parts of the world such as Iraq and Burma were greater priorities. The freeze will last until mid-2008, and there are no guarantees that Africans will be admitted after then.

Good idea. (A freeze on African refugees should help control the spread of HIV.) Refugees should go the nearest safe country, and the West should help resettle them there. Can we have a freeze, too? Preferably one that freezes Muslim immigration.

Never too late - but too little.

Mark Steyn (October 1 2007 National Review)justifiably eviscerates the moribund husk of the lefties favourite folk singer - Pete Seeger.

Steyn writes:

"In The New York Sun the other day, Ron Radosh had a scoop: Hold the front page! Stop the presses! Grizzled Leftie Icon Repudiates…

Who? Castro? Chavez? Al-Qaeda?

Whoa, let’s not rush to judgment. No, the big story was: Grizzled Leftie Icon Repudiates …Stalin.

A couple of months back, there was some documentary or other “celebrating” the “spirit” of Pete Seeger, the folkie colossus, with contributions from the usual suspects – Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, one or more Dixie Chicks, two-thirds of Peter, Paul and Mary, etc. Mr Radosh had also been interviewed but his remarks about Seeger’s lifelong support of Stalinism had not made the final cut. No surprise there. In such circumstances, the rule is to hail someone for his “activism” and “commitment” and “passion” without getting hung up on the specifics of what exactly he’s actively and passionately committing to. Giving him a Kennedy Center Honor a decade or so back, President Clinton hailed ol’ Pete as “an inconvenient artist who dared to sing things as he saw them”, which is one way of putting it. You can’t help noticing, though, that it’s all the documentaries and honors ceremonies and lifetime-achievement tributes to Mr Seeger that seem to find certain things “inconvenient”. The Washington Post’s Style section, with its usual sly elan, hailed him as America’s “best-loved Commie” – which I think translates as “Okay, so the genial old coot spent a lifetime shilling for totalitarian murderers, but only uptight Republican squares would be boorish enough to dwell on it.”

Anyway, in the Sun, Mr Radosh, a former banjo pupil of the great man, did dwell on it, and a few weeks later got a letter in response. “I think you’re right,” wrote Pete. “I should have asked to see the gulags when I was in [the] USSR.” And he enclosed a new song he’d composed:

I’m singing about old Joe, cruel Joe
He ruled with an iron hand
He put an end to the dreams
Of so many in every land
He had a chance to make
A brand new start for the human race
Instead he set it back
Right in the same nasty place
I got the Big Joe Blues
(Keep your mouth shut or you will die fast)
I got the Big Joe Blues
(Do this job, no questions asked)
I got the Big Joe Blues… "



In his characteristic pungent prose, Mark comprehensively banjos Seeger's insidious soppy socialist songwriting and rounds up in the closing paragraphs:

"James Lileks, the bard of Minnesota, once offered this trenchant analysis of Pete Seeger:

“‘If I Had A Hammer’? Well, what’s stopping you? Go to the hardware store; they’re about a buck-ninety, tops.”

Very true. For the cost of a restricted-view seat at a Peter, Paul and Mary revival, you could buy half-a-dozen top-of-the-line hammers and have a lot more fun, even if you used them on yourself. Yet in a sense Lileks is missing the point : yes, they’re dopey nursery-school jingles, but that’s why they’re so insidious. The numbing simplicity allows them to be passed off as uncontentious unexceptionable all-purpose anthems of goodwill. Which is why you hear “This Land Is Your Land” in American grade schools, but not “The Battle Hymn Of The Republic”. The invention of the faux-childlike faux-folk song was one of the greatest forces in the infantilization of American culture. Seeger’s hymn to the “senselessness” of all war, “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?”, combined passivity with condescension - “When will they ever learn?” - and established the default mode of contemporary artistic “dissent”. Mr Seeger’s ongoing veneration is indestructible. But at least we now know the answer to the question “When will he ever learn?”

At least half-a-century too late."

Wonderful - read it all.

RIP Ned Sherrin

Ned Sherrin has popped his clogs. Described in the announcement on the ten-o'clock news as a tail ... (sorry) ... trail-blazer and the promoter ... (sorry) ... producer of Loose Ends. Indeed so.

Success in Iraq!

In the Sunday Times yesterday, Bartle Bull, long-time Iraq correspondent, says the Iraq war is almost won: all-out civil war has been avoided, democracy accepted and life goes on despite the bloodshed.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that civilian deaths have fallen dramatically...