Boris Yeltsin Dead.

Is anyone else amazed that he managed to live to the age of 76? He looked as if he was on death's door for most of his presidency. There was something both amusing and terrifying about having a drunkard running one of the world's super powers.

More Police & Racism.

Whilst I've written several posts about the police and racism in the last week or so there is one additional point I want to make. The term 'institutional racism' was always a vacuous term designed to 'prove' racism where no evidence existed. Most of the ill effects of MacPherson's popularising of the concept were entirely predictable to those who created the term. One side effect which they had not predicted was that not only does the concept prove racism where none exists but it excuses real unambiguous racist misconduct by individuals by loftily assigning the blame to the institution.

Take for example Christopher Adler who died in a police cell in 1998. The black former Paratrooper collapsed and choked to death on his own blood whilst certain police officers nearby were making monkey noises. The report into his death incredibly claimed that this was 'unwitting racism'. If these inquiries spent more time looking at the specific behaviour of individuals rather than promoting nebulous catch all phrases whereby everyone is guilty and no one is guilty then they would be considerably more illuminating.

Alan Hart Guest Blog: I'm Going To Sue Everybody.

In light of the actions of a shadowy cabal of zionists to discredit me for daring to criticise Israel, (because it is very rare for Israel to be criticised by the press usually) for kidnapping Alan Johnston, blowing up the WTC, shooting Bambi's mother, making derogatory remarks about me whilst standing to my left at the urinal and writing the script for Basic Instinct 2: I feel I must resort to legal action. So I rang up my old friend the libel lawyer George Carmen, after explaining my situation to him I was informed that he had in fact died several years ago, possibly murdered by Israel. Anyway I'm still going to sue anyone who suggests that there is anything anti semitic about propagating theories as to how zionists are responsible for terrible events even when there is no evidence to say so, and that they do this through shadowy conspiracies that also control the press.

Anyway here is my 'to sue' list, complete with the amounts I want from them.

• Dumbjon, £150000, for 'Cui Bonehead'.
• Tim Worstall, £50 for claiming that I, a former Panorama journalist, am deranged. Also £3000000 for claiming that I use hairspray.
• Mr Dangerouslysubversivead, £400000, for refusing to give me his address so I can sue him.
• Fresno Zionism, £300000, for suggesting that I hate Israel just because I accuse them of murdering journalists and blaming it on the Palestinians. It would have been more had they not complimented me on my rather fetching comb over.
• Blognor Regis, £450000, for highlighting a malicious smear against myself in a hitherto obscure publication 'Wikipedia'.
  

Update: DSD has blown his chance to be sued, that'll teach him.

Alan Hart Guest Blog: Who Was Behind The Virginia Tech Massacre.

At a public meeting in Newport Pagnell Services on Thursday, I was asked for my thoughts (as Britain's greatest living journalist) about the gun massacre in Virginia last week.. There is more than meets the eye here..

There is a possibility however remote that it was indeed the work of Cho Seung-Hui, as his taped confession, eyewitness reports and physical evidence may indicate. Lesser minds than mine might be tempted to say case closed. However we know for certain that he had never carried out a massacre before and we can say for certain that the one person who didn't benefit from the event was Cho, who had much to lose.

On Count One, Cho was a student at Virginia Tech, why would he want a massacre at his own college? On Count Two, he would be blamed for the killings which would harm his employment prospects greatly. No the real culprit is obvious when you are as clever and non anti semitic as me- Israel did it.Let us hope the zionists (not jews) don't muzzle the BBC in their investigation into this issue. I mean they killed Jesus what wouldn't they do?

His Struggle

Whilst lesser men denounce Alan Hart as an anti semite or belittle the persecution this latter day Solzhenitsyn has suffered, but with no greater tool at his disposal than a threat to bankrupt people by embroiling them in costly legal issues Alan bravely fights on against those who want their pound of flesh. So to show my solidarity I've asked Alan to write a couple of guest blogs for this site.

Police & Race Quotas.

For right wing bloggers like myself, the BBC's 'Have Your Say' section is always a useful fall back option when feeling lazy or uninspired, because of the inevitable displays of left wing conspiracy mongering and paranoia that gets through the moderating process. So it was with some surprise that I took a look at the debate on 'Positive Discrimination' in the police force (known as 'racist hiring practices' to honest people), and saw the near unanimous rejection of the proposal. The Commission for Racial Equality, normally a banker when it comes to backing silly racially divisive proposals, has also rejected the idea.

This is of course a good thing but what does it say about the police that the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and the Metropolitan now outflank the CRE and the legions of Beeboids when it comes to race politics?

Keith Jarrett of the National Black Police Association, adds:

If we look at Hounslow in London, it's a borough that is predominantly from a minority ethnic background.

"Now whilst my white colleagues are immensely qualified to do the job, I would put forward that Hounslow would be better served as a borough by a person from an Asian background, who has got culture in common with the local inhabitants, and perhaps speaks the same language."

Good to see the police's anti-racism drive is going so well.

Hart Attack.

Former BBC man Alan Hart's suggestion that the kidnapping and possible murder of Alan Johnston was a false flag operation by the Israelis has met with deserved derision. So much so that he has posted a series of ripostes which are so self pitying and paranoid that I though he was going to start lambasting deceitful charlatans and debauchery, he writes that:

The trouble is that defenders of Israel right or wrong simply don't want to know the truth of history, (they want Zionism's propaganda version of it to stand unchallenged)....

...
That being so I am going to make representations to appropriate authorities about the need for a Blogging Protocol. It would require all who make blog comments to identify themselves properly and completely so that they could be called and held to account for defamation, and quite possibly inciting hatred

Presumably evidence free insinuations that Israel is going round murdering hostile journalists inspires only love and understanding.

What Media Bias?

Canadian blogger Damian Penny notes two recent events:

BBC News, April 14: "The UK's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has strongly condemned the abduction of BBC reporter Alan Johnston in Gaza more than a month ago."

The Guardian, April 13: "The National Union of Journalists has voted at its annual meeting for a boycott of Israeli goods as part of a protest against last year's war in Lebanon."

Last year the mainstream media was loftily insisting that their coverage of Israel's war with Hezbollah was entirely impartial, but as soon as the dust settles they vote en masse to condemn one side. The aggressor in that war, Hezbollah, has suffered no such boycott. If Israel chooses to boycott NUJ members when they attempt to (mis)report from their country then that would be a fair response. In a way it is a good thing that the journalistic profession spew their bile so openly that it can't be ignored.

Incidentally can anyone confirm whether the NUJ once issued a statement of solidarity with Colonel Gadaffi after the United States bombed Libya in response to Libya's support of terrorism?

What MacPherson Wrought.

In February 1999 Lord MacPherson's inquiry into the murder investigation into Stephen Lawrence was published. It's conclusion that the Metropolitan Police was 'institutionally racist' ( despite the fact that the report had to acknowledge that 'In this Inquiry we have not heard evidence of overt racism or discrimination'), was eagerly seized upon by the Blair government and many of the recommendations were implemented, including those which lead to a curtailment of police use of stop and search. It might seem strange that an investigation into the stabbing of a teenager would lead any sensible person to conclude that we should restrict the power of the police to search young people for things like knives, but Lord MacPherson thought it was good idea.

The report didn't actually compare the treatment of Stephen Lawrence's murder with how other murder investigations were conducted, to see if any consistent difference in the approaches taken to black and white victims. Instead it highlighted the failings of one murder investigation and arbitarily assigned the cause to racism. This approach has all the intellectual rigour of blaming it on the alignment of the stars. This isn't to say that serious mistakes were not made by the police for example, the first officer who arrived at the scene called an ambulance and sat in his car instead of attempting first aid, but the witch hunt at the inquiry made all sorts of wild accusations many of which were demonstrably false.

Eight years on and Tony Blair is expressing his shock at a wave of stabbings and shootings of black children by other black youths:

..."The black community - the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law-abiding people horrified at what is happening - need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids. But we won't stop this by pretending it isn't young black kids doing it."

It seems pretty unlikely to me that the problem is a failiure of 'the black community' ( to the extent that that there is any such thing ) to denounce violent crime. There has not been much reluctance by anyone, except perhaps professional race activists, to criticise violent crime. Tony Blair has created a situation where large sections of the public are effectively exempt from policing and the police know that if they do try and do something that involves tackling criminals of an ethnic miority background, then the government will denounce them as jack booted racists and their careers and reputations will be destroyed. The sheer cyncism with which Blair has played with the issue of race and crime throughout his tenure in office makes his pitiful buck passing even more contemptible.

During his Wednesday Commons question session Mr Blair said of the Tory leader: "I'll make it quite clear. I am not suggesting that the right honourable member is a racist, I am simply suggesting that he is an opportunist."

Mr Blair was responding to a question from Conservative MP Crispin Blunt who asked him: "Will the prime minister reflect on just who played the race card recently?"

Mr Blair went on to say that rather than playing up the issue of police stop and search, Mr Hague "should employ a policy of stop and think".

Earlier during prime minister's questions, Mr Hague had launched a strong attack on the government's record on law and order.

He was pressing Mr Blair on police numbers, nearly a week after he first criticised the Macpherson report of destroying police morale by creating a climate in which officers feared using stop and search powers in case they were accused of racism.

So seven years ago when William Hague raised concerns about the decline in stop and search, he suffered the sly insinuations of racism and now in 2007 the Prime Minister has decided that black on black crime isn't in fact his responsibilty at all but that of the 'black community'.

Update: I have made some minor edits to this post because it was originally quite rushed and full of typos and sentences that didn't make sense. No substance has been changed.

Useful Advice.

I've just purchased a packet of superglue and seen the following instruction on the packet- 'Do not attempt to spread superglue with your fingers'. Thank god they warned me.

Update: After heeding their advice not to use my fingers, my tongue is now stuck to the side of my monitor.

Explanation Found.

Yesterday I was wondering how someone like the delightful Baljeet Ghale could possibly have been elected by members of a supposedly responsible teaching profession to represent them. The answer has rather helpfully been provided by the NUT themselves:

Drug addiction, eating disorders and obsessive behaviours are common among teachers, a union says.

One in three will have mental health problems at some point due to the stress of the job, the National Union of Teachers reported.

In other NUT news, they want teachers to walk out of classrooms when it gets a bit warm.

Assorted NUT.

A short time ago I blogged on the risks faced by teachers of being victims of malicious child abuse claims so I was pleased to see that some sensible comments on teaching and child abuse were made today:

Teachers' lives are being ruined because false allegations by pupils stay on their records and turn up on employment checks, a conference heard.

The National Union of Teachers wants false or unproven claims removed from Criminal Records Bureau disclosures.

It is all the more amazing in that it was said by a member of the National Union of Teachers. Has NUT finally ridded itself of the extreme left wing fanatics who bring the organisation into contempt with the wider public?

The first ethnic minority president of the National Union of Teachers has said ministers fuel racism by ordering schools to teach "British values".

London assistant head teacher Baljeet Ghale told the union's annual conference Britain did not have a monopoly on free speech and tolerance....

...."To demand that people conform to an imposed view of Britishness only fuels that racism," Ms Ghale said.

That'll be 'No' then. Don't get me wrong, I think that 'teaching Britishness' is a preposterous gimmick by a government that essentially despises Britain, but the idea that being told that their country is tolerant will make children hate ethnic minorities is perplexing. The BBC's report of Baljeet Ghale's speech doesn't really do it justice, for that the most reliable source is the Socialist Worker:

Baljeet Ghale this year became the first black president of the NUT teachers' union. In her opening address to conference this weekend she attacked the Labour government's record on education.

She said, “This year marks 200 years since the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It is 60 years since India's break from the shackles of colonialism and 40 years since Israel illegally occupied the West Bank and the Gaza strip....

....“As he reaches the end of his time as prime minister there is something increasingly desperate about Blair’s attempts to create his legacy. Much as he might wish it to be, academies will not be his legacy. It will of course be Iraq.

"He might have claimed that his priority was education, but unfortunately for us, and more importantly for the people of Iraq, his legacy will be the illegal war he has waged there.

"His misjudgement and arrogance cannot be disguised. He can continue trying to rush through an untested academies programme but will forever be remembered for the war....

....She went on to argue that the gap between investment in private and comprehensive schools must be closed. She said, "And where will the money come from to support these initiatives?

"It is estimated that the war in Iraq will have cost Britain £6 billion by the end of this year. Now we hear that £76 billion is being earmarked for a new nuclear weapon to replace trident.

"The government's priorities are all wrong. Surely this money would be better spent on education with billions left to rebuild hospitals and an NHS to be proud of and free for all."

The nicest thing that can be said about Ms Ghale, is that having heard her speak I have a better idea of what the problems in our education system might be. Pupils might not be able to spell Iraq or Zionism, but we can sleep safely knowing that they will be opposed to both.

We Paean North Korea.

One last (I hope) post about the recently released hostages. They have been criticised in some quarters for the 'confessions' they made, personally I don't see the problem because everyone knows that obviously coerced statements are fake, but wouldn't it have been nice if they could have done something similar to what Lloyd Bulcher, commander of the USS Pueblo, did when he and his crew were captured by the North Koreans in 1968:

Commander Lloyd M. Bucher, Commanding Officer of the Pueblo was tortured and put through a mock firing squad in an effort to make him confess. Eventually the Koreans threatened to execute his men in front of him, and Bucher relented. None of the Koreans knew English well enough to write the confession, so they had Bucher write it himself. They verified the meaning of his words, but failed to catch the pun when he said "We paean the North Korean state. We paean their great leader Kim Il Sung."

Child Care & Stuff.

This story about a survey into the effects of nursery care on the behaviour of children doesn't seem too surprising to me:

Toddlers who spend three or more days a week in nursery are more likely to become anti-social, worried and upset, government research has found.

The evaluation of a £370m scheme to expand children's centres found youngsters were more likely to behave poorly the longer they spent in care.

I suspect that the cause of the poor behaviour isn't nursery care as such but the reduction in parental care that accompanies it. It isn't exactly news that good behaviour is learnt to some exten,t by very young children interacting with their parents, assuming the parents are reasonably competent and reinforce good behaviour and set boundries on bad behaviour. A nursery carer cannot provide the same framework of discipline and rewards to large groups of children that parents can give to one child at a time. Other than Polly Toynbee is there anyone who would have expected any other result from the study?

Stupid People Still Allowed On The Internet.

Browsing through a bunch of blogs yesterday I came across this site, United Irelander, which as the name suggests is by an ethnic bigot who seems to have no greater achievement than his nationality. Now Irish chauvinists are generally marked by rabid anglophobia and this one is no different. Anyway, here he is offering his er, considered opinions about the Falkland Islands, sorry I mean 'the Malvinas':

It's pretty revolting that the British see fit to cling tightly to these islands off the coast of Argentina and claim they are doing so as a matter of principle.

And also:

the Argentinians regard the islands as part of their nation.

Yes, we have aswivel eyed bogtrotter nationalist making the argument that if a larger nation wants to have possession of small islands many miles off its coast, it has the right to do so regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants. I don't think he's thought this through:

Hello Sailors.

The abducted sailors appear to be about to be released now which is in and of itself a good thing. However if Iran received any concessions in return for this deal, such as the release of their diplomat yesterday, then we have created an incentive for them to capture further hostages in future. No one has ever doubted that simply doing what Iran told us to would result in the release of the Navy personel, so it is particularly witless to babble on, as Matthew Yglesias does here, about 'Doves 1, Hawks 0', when we don't what combination of sticks and carrots have been shown to Iran behind the scenes.

The Limits Of Neutrality.

The petition in todays Guardian by over 300 journalists, editors and broadcasters calling for the immediate release of the abducted BBC journalist Alan Johnston is admirable in purpose and one can only hope that it will have an impact. The resolute tone adopted by media outlets when reporting the abduction of a journalist throws into sharp contrast the reportage of Iran's abduction of 15 sailors and marines. Wheras almost all the reports of Mr Johnston's abduction use words like 'abducted' 'hostage' and 'kidnapped' reports about the British Servicemen & service woman routinely use less precise words such as 'captives', 'prisoners' and 'taken' which muddy the truth of what has actualy happened.

In fact going further in an era where Fox News is treated with disdain by the rest of the media world for being so crass as to make it clear that they are not neutral between the West and it's enemies, by for example letting newsreaders wear lapel badges of their nation's flag, one has to wonder why it seems to be acceptable to take an ethical stand over the disappearance of a journalist but not over war with a barbarian regime like the Taliban. Of course objective reporting should not be neutral between right and wrong any more than objective geography should be neutral between the Flat Earth theory and the Spherical globe concept.

So why is it considered okay for the BBC to organise a petion demand the release of Alan Johnston but not demand the release of the sailors?

Waste Of Money.

It is well known that former Guardian coment editor, Richard Gott, had to resign from his post a decade or so ago when it was revealed that he was a paid 'Agent of Influence'. This I think tells you something about how inefficient the KGB were, paying Richard Gott to betray his country is like paying Paris Hilton to act slutty, as Gott's latest offering demonstrates he is more than willing to do it for free:

Argentina's claim on the Falklands is still a good one


Regardless of the islanders' wishes, the issue of sovereignty will at some point have to get back on the agenda

The phrase 'regardless of the islanders wishes' says it all really.