The Guardian's Double Standard On Bribing Law Enforcement Agents.

As I've already said the Guardian's work in the News of the World scandal has been exemplary and they should be rightly proud of their achievements.

They rightly slam the payments that the NOTW made to police officers in order to facilitie their criminal reporting (did you spot the pun there?).

This isn't the first time they've discussed payments made by News International reporters to law enforcement officials. Yet on a previous occasion the Guardian didn't make a fuss about it and indeed described the eventual prosecution of the leaker as having:

worrying implications for investigative journalism

In fact they quoted the subject's lawyer with seeming approval when he described the prosecution as:

making a mountain out of a molehill by choosing to prosecute a former agent for conduct which is fairly run of the mill." 

What could be the difference between then and now?

In 2002 they were describing an agent of the USA's "Drug Enforcement Agency" who leaked files about the Conservative Party treasurer Michael Ashcroft- that falsely implied that he was involved in drug smuggling and money laundering- to the Times..

So bribing law enforcement agencies is wrong unless the aim is to smear a Tory.

Incidentally the journalist who led the Times smear campaign- and presumably knew about paying a DEA agent- is Tom Baldwin who is currently Ed Miliband's press secretary.

Crossing The Parody Horizon*

January 2011- Dim posh former intern illegally advertises for a (below minumum wage) intern.

April 2011- Dim posh former intern denounces system of internships.

Dim posh former intern is of course a beneficiary of internships.



* The parody horizon is when a piece is impossible to parody because the parody would be indistinguishable from the original.

Political Point Scoring- Mostly Own Goals

The Guardian really is the lazy blogger's friend. Today Amanda Marcotte condemns the politicisation of sexual assault:

Unfortunately, as anti-rape activists could have told you, there's no such thing as a sex crime too brutal that some folks won't try to use it for political score-keeping.

 Marcotte is a dimwitted femiloon who writes things like this:

In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good fucking god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out.

Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it?

Of course technically she isn't using a sex crime for political point scoring but using a transparent hoax so maybe that's okay.

Assanity

Julian Assange is a bit of a twat but he does have the knack of bringing out the crazies on all sides of the aisle. Among his detractors the craziest are those demanding that he be killed because he's a "terrorist", ironically the US Congressman who referred to Assange as a terrorist is the most enthusiastic supporter of the IRA in the US, Peter King- so planting bombs in shopping centres and forcing victims to become human bombs isn't terrorism but publishing the gossip from the Ferrero Rocher set is. OK.

Mike Huckabee who is probably going to compete for the GOP presidential nomination has called for the soldier who leaked the information to be executed- given his record of leniancy towards even the most dangerous criminals this seems surprising.

 Assange's supporters are perhaps worse, resembling a cult in which no criticism of the leader can be tolerated. The hackers targetting his enemies are a case in point- they are even targetting the Swedish prosecuters who want him extradited- I don't know whether Assange is guilty or not but neither do they so the fact that they are angry at the Swedes suggest that they think that it doesn't matter whether he rapes anyone or not. Like DJ I've been struck by the difference with how the left usually wants accusations of rape to be treated.

Pea brained American demagoge & TV host Keith Olbermann has even been promoting the prominent  Swedish neo Nazi Israel Shamir in an attempt to discredit Assange's accusers.

Marrvelous

Andrew Marr claims that bloggers are "inadequate, pimpled and single".

Harsh.

No one could accuse Andrew Marr of being single of course. I would personally not be calling other people "seedy" if I were in his position.

Irony Bypass

A newspaper is outraged over companies trying to exploit public interest in Raoul Moat to make money.

According to a google news search the paper in question, the Daily Mail, has run 62 stories about the pathetic inadequate in the last 4 days.

Seamus Milne Does History- Oh Dear

Compare and contrast- Seamus Milne discusses the history of Communism and the history of the British Empire:

Nazi Comparisons:

With the USSR are bad-

The fashionable attempt to equate communism and Nazism is in reality a moral and historical nonsense. Despite the cruelties of the Stalin terror, there was no Soviet Treblinka or Sobibor, no extermination camps built to murder millions.

With the British Empire are entirely reasonable-

No wonder Hitler was such an enthusiastic admirer of Britain's empire, which he described as an "inestimable factor of value". The echoes of Nazism in the colonial record are unmistakable

The Ends Justifies The Means:

With the USSR, yes-

communism in the Soviet Union, eastern Europe and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialisation, mass education, job security and huge advances in social and gender equality. It encompassed genuine idealism and commitment, captured even by critical films and books of the post-Stalin era such as Wajda's Man of Marble and Rybakov's Children of the Arbat. Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the west, boosted the anticolonial movement and provided a powerful counterweight to western global domination.

With the Empire, no-

But the question, as Colin Jones, president of the Royal Historical Society, puts it, should be: "Which narrative?" If Britain had genuinely come to terms with its imperial history, no senior politician would have dared suggest celebrating it or mobilising apologists to sanitise its record for schoolchildren.

The British empire was, after all, an avowedly racist despotism built on ethnic cleansing, enslavement, continual wars and savage repression, land theft and merciless exploitation. Far from bringing good governance, democracy or economic progress, the empire undeveloped vast areas, executed and jailed hundreds of thousands for fighting for self-rule, ran concentration camps, carried out medical experiments on prisoners and oversaw famines that killed tens of millions of people.

By the numbers:

For the USSR, we must avoid an "ideologically-fuelled inflation game":

The real records of repression now available from the Soviet archives are horrific enough (799,455 people were recorded as executed between 1921 and 1953 and the labour camp population reached 2.5 million at its peak) without engaging in an ideologically-fuelled inflation game.

With the Empire we can cherry pick sources about death tolls from idealogically fuelled nutjobs whose estimates are more than ten times those of mainstream historians:

To this day, Kenyan victims of the 1950s campaign of torture, killing and mass internment are still trying, and failing, to win British compensation during a "counter-insurgency" war that, by some estimates, left 100,000 dead.

Etc etc.

Union Leader Celebrates Banning Of Unions.

Tony Woodley, the buffoonish leader of the UNITE union is holidaying in Cuba, supposedly to celebrate 51 years of Castro's seizure of power. Although I suppose he could be sampling the underage prostitutes and cigars instead. This is causing some problems with the efforts to resolve the planned BA strikes that are coming up.

Perhaps we can learn from Cuba though- and ban Trade Unions like UNITE so they can't disrupt everyone's travel arrangements. In fact we could really be like Cuba and ban travel all together.

Finally here is a picture of Mr Woodley demonstrating his Castro style tolerence for a free press:

How Would They Like It If We Banned Cuckoo Clocks?

I don't support banning things, so obviously I can't support the Swiss decision to ban minarets even though the hand wringing is amusing. As I understand it most Swiss nominal Muslims are from the largely secular European Muslim cultures of Bosnia and Albania in any case, so annoying them for no reason seems pointless at best and vindictive at worst.

It is also trivial, what is more likely to lead to the rise of Islamism- the building of minarets or mass immigration from countries where Islamism is a major force?

That said the whining from various Muslim nations is absurd given their own behaviour towards church building. Egypt has objected to the Swiss ban, this is the same country which has for many years prevented Coptic Christians from building new churches or even repairing existing ones. No doubt the Saudi royal family will threaten to withdraw their secret bank accounts from Switzerland too.

Still it is impressive how Swiss voters can simply override the wishes of their politicians through referenda.

Retroactive Standards.

Question: How many of those MPs who are complaining about the unfairness of being forced to pay back expenses after Sir Thomas Legg retroactively imposed standards also supported the Windfall Tax on energy companies in the 1990s?

Poles Apart

Last Week:

Polish MPs have passed legislation making it obligatory to chemically castrate certain sex offenders.

Under the law anyone found guilty of raping children under 15, or close relatives, will be given drugs to lower their sex drive.
............
They were part of a bill that also increases jail terms for incest and paedophilia, and criminalises any attempt to justify paedophilia.

This Week:

Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda and other Polish filmmakers appealed Monday to U.S. and Swiss authorities to free Roman Polanski, decrying his arrest as a "provocation."

Their appeal came as the Polish and French governments wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and called up Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey about the case.

Law & Orde

January 2007- Chief of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Hugh Orde, welcomes Sinn Fein's decision to participate in policing:

"I have always said that no ideology or individual should stand between the public and that service and that the community is entitled to have their public representatives hold this police service to account."

September 2009- Head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Hugh Orde, condemns the idea of allowing people to elect police commissioners because of the dangers of extremists:

Asked whether he feared that a BNP or far-right candidate could seize upon this, Sir Hugh replied: "Yes, that is a risk. If you have a system whereby anyone can stand to be elected as the local police commissioner, you could have any Tom, Dick or Harriet standing. If they can muster enough support against a backdrop of public apathy, then of course it is a risk."

I guess some people aren't entitled to have their public representatives hold the police service to account after all.

Incidentally the chances of the BNP having a representative elected to be a police commissioner is trivial. As it is they gain seats in proportional representation systems because they only need 10% or so of the vote. The idea that they could win an election to a single office is absurd. They do very badly in council elections under FPTP because if voters can vote against the BNP they generally do. They could no more win an election in large constituency for one office than they could win a parliamentary constituency.

Then again ACPO is the Chief Constables' trade union so it is fairly obvious that they will oppose any move to diminish their power.

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Witch Finder General Denounces Witch Hunts.

Exposing hypocrisy by Beatrix Campbell OBE is easy but is worth doing anyway. Today she writes:

When David Cameron says "sorry" for the witch-hunting section 28 passed by the vengeful Tories in 1988

Now if there is one person who shouldn't be accusing others of 'witch hunting' it is surely Beatrix Campbell. Witch hunting is often used as a metaphor, as Campbell uses it here or as when it was to describe the McCarthyite anti communist accusations. However Bea Campbell wasn't simply involved in metaphorical witch hunts, she literally claimed to be uncovering conspiracies of people carrying out ritualistic abuse in order to please Satan!

Competitive Shroud Waving.

Anyone else noticed that certain shroud wavers who were taking the silence* of right wing bloggers over the death of a G-20 protester (or passerby) to be "The stench of hypocrisy" or a "salient demonstration of quite what the right really thinks about freedom in this country" have been remarkably silent over the conviction of a police officer for causing the death of a schoolgirl by dangerous driving?

It can't really be claimed that the one death is less outrageous than the other, because driving at 94mph in a built up are without a siren on is clearly more likely to cause death than hitting someone in the legs and then pushing them in the back. So why the double standard? Could it be that synthetic outrage over one incident is being cultivated so that it can provide an opportunity for sanctimonious moralising and pretending that we live in a police state?

I suppose I should state my own views on the death of Ian Tomlinson to prevent any accusations that I'm justifying it, although my thoughts on the matter aren't terribly interesting. The degree of force he was subjected to was unnecessary and even though it could not really have been anticipated that it would cause serious harm let alone death it may be involuntary manslaughter if a medical examination concludes that it led directly to his death. It is possible that he had been deliberately walking slowly in front of the police but even if that is the case it doesn't justify being beaten with a baton.

* There wasn't any actual silence of course.

Hypocrite Of The Day- Sunny Hundal.

Following on from my previous post- Sunny Hundal, today:

It's worth stressing that the police decision to form a cordon and not allow people free movement started becoming a focus point for their annoyance. For a while the chanting was their only form of protest. But we felt like we were in a pressure cooker.

So he doesnt like being cooped up and not allowed to leave. Quite understandable, so you'd expect he would have condemned outright the idiots who kept passengers stuck in Stansted Airport a few months back right? Er no:

Well Done Plane Stupid.

Honestly, I love these guys. It does somewhat worry me that Plane Stupid is so unwilling to have a constitution or an organisational structure that soon enough someone malicious will try something violent and claim he/she was doing it as part of Plane Stupid to save the planet.

Otherwise, fully supportive of yesterday’s occupation of Stansted.

Obviously detaining the ghastly chavvy holiday makers is a price worth paying whereas stopping important people like Sunny who explained to the stupid police officers who they were is an outrageous violation of civil liberties.

Hypocrisy Thy Name Is Crusty.

One of the G20 protests yesterday was the Climate Camp, who set up their tents in the middle of London's streets.

Now what happens if there is an ad hoc camp site in the middle of the road? The roads become unusable for ordinary people trying to come in and out.

So the climate campers blocked other people's free movement.

So does anyone want to have a guess at what there bitching about in relation to the police's treatment of them? The police prevented them from going in or out of the protest zone.

Their free movement was blocked.

Diddums.

(See also Julia and LfaT).

'Peace' Activists

Of course the Stop the War Coalition have been quick to comment on the Russian invasion of Georgia:

The oubreak of war in Georgia is already a disaster for the people of the region. It risks being turned into a still broader problem by Dick Cheney's threats.

The conflict is in large measure the product of George Bush's policy of US global hegemony, in the Caucauses as in the Middle East. Attempts to extend NATO eastwards, specifically incorporating Georgia, directly challenge Russian interests.

Plans to build more pipelines to siphon gas and oil from the Caucasus to ensure western control of these resources have added to the tension.

The Stop the War Coalition supports the right of self determination, but we oppose any calls for intervention by the US or NATO.

Demands from US, British and other western leaders to Russia to respect countries' territorial integrity are simply not credible after the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the bombing of Somalia and the constant threats against Iran.

The comment by US envoy to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad that "the days of overthrowing leaders by military means in Europe are over" is an expression of this hypocrisy.

I'm sure the demand for Russia to actually stop the war was edited for reasons of space. Much more important to stop a war that isn't taking place and isn't being widely proposed. Although for what it's worth (nothing) I personally think we should intervene in Georgia and establish a no fly zone, Russia will back down if confronted.

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Compare & Contrast.

It's been one year since the murder of Alexander Litvinenko most likely at the behest of the Russian government, Russia refuses to extradite the man suspected of the murder Andrei Lugovoi. One of the few acts of this government which I have welcomed was the refusal to let it lie. Russia has countered that Britain's stance is hypocritical on the grounds that we have refused to extradite Vladimir Putin's political opponents such as Boris Berezovsky, although the situations are quite obviously not comparable. However it is hard to sustain a defence of Britain's demands for suspected murderers to be extradited when our courts are pulling stunts like this:

A Belfast court has turned down an application for the extradition of Roisin McAliskey to Germany.

German authorities wanted her to face trial for the attempted murder of soldiers at a British army barracks in Osnabruck in northern Germany in 1996.

Ms McAliskey was arrested at her home in Coalisland last May and was on bail.

The Recorder of Belfast, Judge Burgess, refused the application on the basis that it "would be oppressive because of the passage of time".

It is hard to believe that the Judge's decision is based on anything more than political expediency seeing as there has never been a statue of limitation on attempted murder. How can Britain credibly demand that Mr Lugovoi be extradited when we refuse when our bent judges shield those suspected of trying to murder British soldiers?

At Least.... Glug.... We're.... Glug.... Diverse.

Someone call Diane Abbott, because we know how upset she is by racism. If she can drag herself away from attacking the Boris National Party perhaps she could turn her attention to this case:

A teenage science student has been banned from applying for a training programme with the Environment Agency because she is white and English....

...Three days later, PATH recruitment officer, Bola Odusi, replied: "Thank you for your enquiry unfortunately the traineeship opportunity in <\[>sic] targeted towards the ethnic minority group to address their under representations in the professions under the Race Relations Act amended 2000."

Ethnic minorities in this sample included those oppressed minorities the Scottish, the Irish and the Welsh! Actually Diane Abbott is probably not the right woman for the job because the student is blonde and blue eyed, though thankfully not Finnish. Of course the big issue here isn't some hypocritical champagne socialist but rather the perversity of racist recruitment practices in the public sector, which is illegal in theory. Here is what the CRE report about how the Environment Agency conducts its race relations:

The Environment Agency is responsible for protecting and managing the environment in England and Wales. ..

.......
Beyond 'value for money', the procurement objectives of the Environment Agency include 'best practice' and 'least impact on the environment'. For the Environment Agency, 'best value' does not always mean lowest cost.

'We're a complex organisation and we ask for a lot more now from our suppliers, not just in relation to price and quality but, for example, health and safety and environmental criteria. If we take on new suppliers, it is critical that they understand what we are looking for and we understand their requirements and limitations.'

Being a government organisation makes the agency accountable for public money. At the same time it has a statutory duty under the Race Relations Act 1976 (RRA) to promote race equality in all its activities, including procurement. The Environment Agency does not see these as conflicting demands.

'As a business, to succeed, we need to ensure that our supply base reflects the population and businesses we serve.'

In other words, "we might completely fuck up little things like building flood defences, but at least our incompetence is delivered in a suitably diverse manner". Exactly why it is important that their suppliers reflect the population is left unexplained, personally an awful lot of my purchases of late have been made in China and the nearest I get to being Chinese is a fondness for Sweet and Sour Chicken.

Gullible & Innumerate Journalists.

Tim Worstall's post about the supposed 2 million people who watched the Tour De France at the weekend has reminded me of another dubious audience claim at the weekend on a far more preposterous scale. The claim that 2 billion people watched Al Gore's irony deficient Live Earth concerts is such obvious bullshit I can't understand why it has been repeated so credulously. Apart from the innumeracy and uncritical thinking of the press of course.

The population of the Earth is around 6 billion, however a large chunk of the world population have little access to television, 600 million people in India alone for instance. It isn't easy to get exact figures on television access, but it seems reasonable to guesstimate that at least 2 billion people have highly limited access to the medium because most African countries have lower television ownership rates than India, as do several other large Asian nations. So therefore in the rest of the world there needs to be around 1 in 2 people watching Love Earth for the figure to be even remotely plausible. Of course the Chinese government isn't too keen on the event either, so it wasn't broadcast on a national terrestrial network there, so that is probably another billion people who didn't see the event.

All this means that Live Earth would need to be seen by around 2 in 3 people in the west so what were the actual viewing figures in countries like the UK and the USA? Well, somewhaty less than 2 in 3:

The main three-hour American TV broadcast on NBC averaged a meagre 2.7 million viewers...
...It was the same story in Britain, where BBC One coverage of the Live Earth climax at London's Wembley Stadium, leading up to Madonna's eagerly awaited finale, averaged 3.1 million viewers, compared with 11.4 million for the Diana tribute.

In Germany, the ProSieben network registered 1 million viewers for its Live Earth telecast, accounting for a relatively healthy 6.3 percent market share.