The new figures indicate that in the year 2007-8 there were some 277 deaths from stabbings in England & Wales alone(the highest recorded figure for 30 years). This represents an average death toll as a direct result of stabbings of over 5 for every week of the year!
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11-12 year olds carrying knives last year: 10% (Youth at risk)
15-17 year olds admitting to carrying knives for self defence: 46% (Ian Johnston – Chief Constable British Transport Police)
Pupils in London Schools carrying knives: 29% (Youth Justice Board / Mori 2003)
Am I implying the rise in atheism is linked to knife crime? Perhaps what I’m really implying is that you can link atheism or religion to other country statistics in anyway you see fit to demonstrate your point – something I’ve noticed the Friendly Atheist is occasionally fond of doing.
Gavin Ayling thinks the law should be written in plain English. I’d like to expand on his post. I’ve always been amazed at this legal principle that underlines society.
Since there are so many laws and regulations to follows wouldn’t many of us be ignorant until pulled up on one?
And yet how many times have we come up against authorities themselves who play upon our ignorance and ignore the laws meant to keep them in check?
It seems to me laws have been crafted as to cover every tiny possibility and remove as much discretion as possible for a judge to employ. I think an efficient and humanitarian society should look to reducing laws and regulations as much as possible – wording them so that they cover a ‘multitude of sins’ rather than every single little possibility. This would then assure people of (a) their rights and (b) their responsibilities.
All of the above acts deal with or touch on violence of some sort. Obviously we could say most reasonable people are not the violent type so many of these rules won’t apply, but this is just an example.
What this tells me is at least one of the following reasons,
The lawmakers are too lazy, or braindead, to check if something is already covered in exsisting law
The existing law was not good enough
The law was created for political expediency, not for genuine practical reasons
There is money to be made in lawmaking
Is not violence or harrassment against a black person as bad it is against a white person? A gay person or straight person? A child or adult? An immigrant or local? A man or woman?
Does this also mean that any minority not covered by this existing legislation is at risk from lawful violence?
“Your honour, I would like to point out that the man my client attacked is a narcoleptic and is therefore not protected by any existing legislation. My client was therefore acting in a lawful manner and I would request this case is thrown out.”
Would it not be a better society if lawmakers actually tried to include the widest possible interpretation when crafting legislation? Then, leave it for the judges to interpret and decide if a law had actually been broken or not.
What’s wrong with, for example, a law that states “You shall not inflict violence upon another person”. It would then be for a judge and jury to distinguish between a bloody beheading or a playful punch and award compensation and punishments on a scale.
“To make laws that a man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.” – Elizabeth Candy Stanton
People do not exist for laws, laws exist for people and politicians need to get it into their head that society cannot be controlled or coerced into being happy and nice to each other, but most of us are capable of telling right from wrong. No-one needs to consult various regulations and acts each day before leaving their house to ensure that they don’t commit an offence. It’s time for better laws, not more laws.
That’s my first guess at what has caused his near U-turn on ID cards:
David Blunkett, who as Home Secretary led the government’s push for compulsory ID cards, will tomorrow call for the scheme to be curtailed, according to a report.
Instead he will propose that only foreigners be made to hold an ID card. UK nationals should only be required to hold a passport, Blunkett will argue.
For those not in the know, whilst Blunkett was in public office, flogging ID Cards and all manner of Orwellian devices to use on us, the British public, he received a nice directorship with Entrust, the company who created Spains ID card system and lobbied for the contract for the British one.
I’m sure there was no link between Blunketts cushty new job and his policy towards ID cards at the time.
A glance at the news show Entrust doing reasonably well profits wise during the recession, so what has caused Blunkett to shift his stance?
Worth watching this one, lack of sight has caused Blunketts nose to develop a keen sense of smell for money and influence.
As for the many Clintonites in the new administration, the folks who in the past gave us no health reform, a regressive and pauperizing diminishment of public aid, without any real checks on corporate power, I am glad that they are ultimately not in charge. Obama appears to be unusually his own man.
An eloquent orator, he’s also aware of the dire need to lower expectations, which is my explanation for his relatively flat inaugural speech. In sum, I see Obama as a very cool and controlled individual with a few very clear goals in mind who is a virtuoso in the art of persuasion and leadership.
So I thought I’d respond further.
I eye Obama cautiously. Whilst I was overjoyed he won, and am glad he is now President, I am careful not to put too much expectation on the man – for he is human after all and therefore he will, at some point let us down – as all human beings do.
That isn’t to say he can’t achieve great things – time will tell. Hopefully he will not turn out to be a Bliar – but Bliar was greeted with much the same adulation and praise 12 years ago.
Bliar was seen as being young, idealistitc, being in touch with the people and as a positive change from the old ways.
Bliar was anti-nuclear – a member of the CND, but left his term calling for more nuclear power. Just as Bush was dead against interfering in foreign nations.
It leads me to consider that there are those who get elected and there are those who pull the strings. If Obama is genuine in his pursuit of change, and getting his agenda, then it is doubtless he will come up against these puppet masters and strong unseen opposition in the medium to long term. I expect assassination attempts – and not by white supremacists though they would make a fitting scapegoat.
Rather than answer the question, Dawkins makes the presumption that the young lady in question is “brought up” in a Christian home and then turns the question back on her.
I’d love to see how Dawkins addresses someone like me who was brought up without beliefs, dabbled in the occult, rejecting the faith of Jehova’s Witnesses, going from atheist to agnostic and opened myself up to whatever kind of higher power or beings were out there before becoming a Christian.
I don’t know why supposed intellectual people cheer for someone who so obviously doesn’t want to accept the possibility of being wrong.
However it appears that Dawkins has softened his stance on the existence of a higher power himself more recently, as Mattghg writes.
It seems Dawkins, though tirelessly never to admit he is wrong, considers there may be something “grander and more mysterious” than God out there after all. Of course by suggesting this we get in to all sort of ad infinitum arguments, and I’m surprised he would take it upon himself to answer the the old atheist chesnut “Who created God?”.
Maybe if Dawkins’ only personal objection to God is that the idea of ‘God’ for him is… boring.
Two items of interest posted last year on TorrentFreak and The Register, that I never got round to commenting on.
Both Cleveland and Lancashire police caught defrauding the music industry, much like those it has arrested in the OiNK case before. Cleveland particularly appear to be hoisted by their own petard in this case, being the force to bring prosecution against the OiNKers.
Meanwhile it seems that Gordon Brown is also embracing piracy, by failing to acknowledge creative commons licensing.
I’ve been wrong all theses years. The government understands freedom perfectly, it just doesn’t want us to have any.
Overheard at a desk in a major investment bank today:
“This MP basically said that they’re creating an inflationary environment… 15% interest rates, not this year, but over the next 3 years”
Make of it what you will, personally it tells me that everyone in the know is aware of what is coming next and what is needed, but for some reason Flash Gordon and Alistair Darling are out of the loop or didn’t get the memo. It’s also becoming clear that Flash is intending to pull a Zimbabwe and start printing money (he calls this “quantitative easing” – which is another fancy financial bullshit term for printing money).
You see there is only two ways out of a recession, inflation or raising interest rates. You should know what happens when the government uses inflation, it’s been done before by the Weimar Republic and more recently Zanu-PF.
But what about the other tool, interest rates? Well, you see, this would cause millions of feckless, leveraged, mewing borrowers to realise the difference between debt and wealth – can’t have that, or can we?
The fact is we’re dangerously close to the edge of falling into hyperinflation and while its difficult to predict how disastrous this would be we do know that fixed loans would be eroded away, but so would the value of GBP, the value of any savings and investments too (you know, the things used to fund borrowing) – basically our ecomony would become worthless and most likely we’d all end up informally adopting the Euro.
So why does Flash want to print money? There can only be one of three conclusions, either he…
Has lost all sense of reality, delusional, thinking he is the saviour of the world
Has engineered this, in part, on purpose. The most far reaching conclusion however I can’t help but wonder if he was hoping for a bust sooner, so that it would damage Bliar (and oust him out of office), or even, guessing (or feeling) he will lose an election soon, hoping to pass the bubble on to the Tories just before it burst (securing a short term for them, allowing him to be elected back into power at the next election). Far reaching but not inconceivable – considering all the warnings he has ignored over the 10 years he was Chancellor.
Whatever the reasons for his contempt of savers, the UK economy and the poor, all his actions are delaying the inevitable (and making it worse)… depression and potentially more civil unrest.
Since I don’t contribute enough to my own blog, I sometimes take the liberty of reproducing stealing a comment I leave on someone elses blog, the following is what I just left over at The Osterley Times:
It’s about time the truth started to get out. I never believed the official police or media account when certain witnesses were coming forward to say he had a heavy brown winter jacket on and “wires sticking out”.
The Met police have shamefully and barefaced tried to obfuscate and bury this incident from day 1.
Mr De Menzes reputation has been dragged through various incarnations of a rapist, drug user, illegal immigrant (overstayed visa) and such with the complicit help of evil publications like The Sun.
We have had dark days in the last 5 years with the political and authoritarian spin machine and though I may sound like a conspiraloon there are far too many questions and nefarious subplots going on around our government and that of the US.
Someone should lose their job- possibly go to prison over De Menezes, unfortunately I think all that will come out of this inquiry is a fine at the most.
Lastly, I hope the worst for Cressida Prick.
She has openly admitted that this could happen again, and with the same forked tongue has the gall to defend their actions and say that there was no way it could be prevented, no lessons learned, no changes to policy.
And it requires a change of government policy that’s for sure. The announcement of a shoot-to-kill policy came in the form of a bullet through one of our own heads (‘one of our own’ as in ‘innocent civilian’).
Policies like this should not be made in secret and I find it shocking that Tony Blair, Ken Livingstone and Ian Blair are not all sitting in jail now awaiting sentencing. Gordon Brown of course may not have been the man to order this policy but he is also complicit in that he allows it to now continue.. just as he allows the Iraq war to continue.
And watch for the announcement of troop withdrawal from someone with balls like Obama, will Brown then follow and withdraw our own?
Someone in the Met needs to lose their head for this, otherwise it could be any one of us travelling the tube one day.. best not to go on any foreign holidays and risk getting a tan!
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Sorry but De Menezes the whole thing just makes my blood boil- I’m so angry with the people who did this and have got away with it.
Anyone following the events surrounding Jean Charles De Menezes murder unfortunate identity crisis, the media spin, government and police spin and inquiry would be well aware of the gross amount of lies misunderestimations about what happened that day.
Many of us who didn’t swallow the media and Met police official pill have now had our suspicions confirmed by at least 2 witnesses that this was a cold execution of an innocent man who was given no warning.
Next time you board a tube, you may want to make sure that you (a) don’t have a tan, (b) aren’t foreign, (c) don’t have a heavy rucksack (though this seems to make no difference) and (d) better warn your family in advance there is a slight chance you may not survive the journey.
Also, you may want to prepare your family that if you are ever killed by anti-terrorists whilst travelling on the tube or generally minding your own business, that you are in no way a sex offender, rapist, peadophile, drug dealer, illegal immigrant, know a muslim who knows a muslim or anything else which may slightly damage a reputation because, garaunteed, this is what you will become as the anti-terrorists attempt to clear themselves of all wrongdoing in the eyes of the Daily Mail.
God Bless you all, as I frequently travel the tube, and have just written a peice of anti-government hate speech, I cannot garuantee I will survive my next tube journey to blog again.. however please be assured I’ve never raped, sexed a minor, dealt in drugs, illegally entered the UK… but I did overstay a visa in Switzerland! – oh shit that’s it then.
One reason why you should never use Wikipedia as your only source for research or collaborating your story*. Also, do not trust everything you read in the dead tree press.
From now on, when anyone quotes Wikipedia to me in an online discussion, I’m going to call them “the zany one”.
Abandon All Fear 