Teenage Lesbians Stripped....

.... of the right to go to a dance.

I've seen a lot of comment on this story:

A teenager's battle to be allowed to take her girlfriend to her school prom has divided America.

Constance McMillen has filed a lawsuit asking a judge to order the dance to go ahead after her school cancelled it rather than let the same-sex couple attend.

It seems to me that most people who have opined about the matter are just sticking to their preconceived notions.

I'm not like that, when I see a story I actually do some research before sharing my opinion, so I'm going to be googling for "teenage lesbians" for a few moments before commenting.

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This is actually taking longer than I anticipated, I'll be back later.

Frying Pan To Fire

So sacked Tory MEP Edward MacMillan-Scott is joining the Liberal Democrats. In his resignation letter (can you resign after you have been sacked?) to David Cameron he says:

You continue to refuse to accept that Michał Kamiński, who now leads the ECR and against whom I stood and won re-election as vice-president of the European parliament last July, has had "antisemitic, homophobic and racist links". You say that you are against extremism at home, yet you propitiate it abroad.

Without going over the accusations against Kaminsky yet again, I'll just say if you are going to pretend to be outraged over antisemitism it would be best not to join the Lib Dems. This is a party whose leader has repeatedly praised Jenny Tonge and allowed her to keep the party whip even after she demanded an investigation into whether Israeli agents went to Haiti to harvest the organs of Haitian earthquake survivors.

Drug Dealers Safer Than Doctors

Like most people I have spent the last two days wearing black in mourning for the tragic passing of Corey Feldman Haim due to taking prescription drugs. Which begs the obvious question whatever happened to the good old fashioned heroin overdose or choking on your own vomit?

Nowadays American celebrities seem to be killing themselves with perfectly legal substances given to them by their doctors, Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger & Brittany Murphy all died after taking prescription meds.

I think there are a number of possible explanations for this- American doctors will give really fun/dangerous drugs out to anyone because of the incentives in their health system, the prescription meds thing is a cover story for cocaine overdose or drug dealers have better health and safety procedures than doctors.

I would guess that it's a case of doctors over prescribing drugs, because I doubt that many people in their 20s & 30s really need that much medicine on a regular basis. When the patients can afford to shop around for a doctor who will dish out painkilliers like smarties they will get what they are looking for.

Government Doesn't Ban Something!

The government has for once decided not to ban something, in this case membership of the BNP for teachers, so congratulations to them.

If membership of the BNP doesn't interfere with their work in the class room there is no case to ban it. The NASUWT believes that it would interfere with the job:

"Maurice Smith seems to have focused, to a point of obsession, on the number of incidents," she said. "One incident is one too many. How many incidents would there have to be before Maurice Smith would be persuaded that further action is needed?

"The idea that a person who signs up to membership of the BNP can simply leave these beliefs at the school gate and behave as a 'professional' when they walk into school is risible.

"A principled stand was required. This is a matter of social justice, staff wellbeing and child protection."

Well if the NASUWT believes that it is impossible for teachers to leave their beliefs at the school gate, then fine but if they really believe that behaving professionally is an impossible task for teachers then there are other implications that flow from that. It would make it very difficult to argue that members of a religion could be science teachers or that politically active socialists could be trusted to take history lessons.

The logic of the NASUWT position means that teachers require a much greater degree of supervision and less autonomy. However I have more faith in the teaching profession than their union does though. I'm sure they can act professionally and if they can't and any teachers, BNP or not, start talking about the myth of the Holocaust during History lessons then they can be sacked for that.

In fairness there are some organisations with a track record of trying to disrupt the education of children and promoting political extremism however on balance I don't think I would ban membership of the teaching unions.

Expert Inflation

The best indicator that this is a non story the fact that the indignant expert they quote is "an assistant sociology professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles". If they couldn't even find a full sociology professor to express disapproval doesn't this suggest that nobody really cares?

Ban The Web

The government, the BBC and Daily Mail have decided that they critical fact about the murderer Peter Chapman is that he met his victim on Facebook. Indeed according to Home Secretary Alan Johnson the British and American governments are thinking of "ways to flag up when a convicted sex offender goes online", because computers can be made to detect Paedo-fingers when they start tapping at a keyboard.

The focus on the least important aspect of the story, Facebook, is particularly absurd given that Chapman's crimes, including abductions and rapes of women, began well before the internet era. If he was prevented from meeting potential victims on the internet he could just as easily have gone back to the manner in which he found them before the internet. The danger wasn't that he was allowed online but that he was allowed out of prison.

On the plus side perhaps the hysteria about the internet will at least result in parents forcing their children out of the house, thus doing wonders for the child obesity rate.

Escaping The Asylum

Making the Glasgow suicide case emblematic of the broader issue of asylum is unwise for a number of reasons:

• People who seek asylum from Canada are probably not escaping persecution, despite Canada's free speech problem.
• People who enter suicide pacts with their son are plainly either nuts or colossally selfish and not potential model citizens.
• As far as I am aware their motive for suicide is not yet known, assuming that every asylum seeker who commits suicide does so because they are seeking asylum is not a safe assumption.

Counter Terrierism

Operation "Piss off any groups of voters we haven't already alienated" continues with the government's latest plan to annoy dog owners:

Every dog owner in the UK would have to take out insurance against their pet attacking someone under government proposals to tackle dangerous breeds.

Police and local councils could also get new powers to force the owners of dangerous dogs to muzzle them or even get them neutered.

Brilliant, force the owners of Yorkshire Terriers to spend lots of money on the off chance that their pet savages someone to death.

Voting On History.

US-Turkish relations are in trouble over the decision by congress to formally recognise the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks. It is beyond any reasonable doubt that the genocide happened and the attitude of modern Turkey towards it is sinister and dishonest.

Having said all that, there is also something faintly sinister about history being determined by political bodies such as congress. Does anyone seriously believe that a bunch of US politicians have any special expertise to make these sort of determinations?

There is I suppose a case for them recognising contemporary genocides because that may necessitate political action but stuff like this is political grandstanding and is determined more by political expediency that a heartfelt desire for truth.

It would make much more sense to criticise Turkey's present day suppression of free speech over the genocidal campaign than to vote on the actual events themselves.

Fake Statistic Watch.

How many people watch the Oscars? I don't know anyone who does yet the most cited figure for the events ratings is:

• "a predicted billion people watching the Oscars"
• "You always have to be apprehensive when you stand up in front of a billion people"
• "the one billion who are said to watch the Oscars worldwide".

This is complete and utter bullshit that narcissistic Hollywood types tell themselves to convince everyone that the world is transfixed by them.

First of all that is more than 1 in 7 of the world's population, and when you consider that many people on the planet are from countries where Hollywood is not the dominant film producer or where English isn't the first language or where televisions are rare or from places in really inconvenient time zones then that eliminates a most of the planet.

Furthermore even in the strongest market for the event, the USA, scarcely more than 1 in 10 of the population watch it.

Finally there is no organisation that provides viewing estimates for international events anyway (even for genuinely popular events like the World Cup the supposed viewing figures are nonsense).

Anyway with only aroung 30 million viewers in the USA it is highly unlikely that the global figure is over 100 million let alone anywhere near a billion.

Great Issues Of Our Time

For the last two days the "most read" story on the Times website has been "Should Carla Bruni have worn a bra?".

I'm undecided.

Labour Sinking

Labour's comeback in the polls seems to be fading in recent polls, this is despite a week when the Conservative Party has been receiving a roasting in the media over Lord Ashcroft's tax status.

If he did promise to become a UK resident for tax purposes but didn't then that is wrong but I find it difficult to feel outraged over him not paying tax on earnings from outside the UK. He is paying tax on his UK earnings and that seems right to me. Ashcroft is an obsession for the BBC, the Guardian and the Times, yet judging by the most popular stories on their websites it isn't an obsession shared by their readers.

Less Popular Than Ever

I see this site has slipped to 109 on Wikio's blog ranking. I think it was around 60 something this time last year.

Fame Through Anonymity

Labour MP Martin Salter writes of Michael Foot:

Prior to his being made editor of the “Evening Standard” at the age of 28, he had already achieved fame from his co-authoring of the pamphlet “Guilty Men”, which attacked Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement.

"Guilty Men" was anonymous so it is hard to see how Foot could have achieved fame through it. I don't know exactly when Foot outed himself as one of the authors then surely it would have been after he stopped working for Lord Beaverbrook, then owner of both the Express and the Standard, as it was his proprietor whose attention he wanted to avoid through anonymity.

Blame Society

Julie Bindel argues that the Yorkshire Ripper should never be freed. So far so good.

She then goes off on one:

If the murders of Ian Banyam, the gay man kicked to death in Trafalgar Square, and Stephen Lawrence, the young black man stabbed to death by racists, are viewed as hate crimes, why are the sex murders of women seen as the actions of individual madmen, rather than an expression of deep-rooted, institutionalised hatred of women?

Actually she isn't wholly wrong, if one does take other individual murderers and use them as evidence of society's hatred of the killer's victims then it does make sense to view Peter Sutcliffe in this way. However this just demonstrates the foolishness of using murderous individuals as proof of society's attitudes. For all her nonsense about making men take the blame for crimes committed by men, she doesn't seem to mean the actual men who commit the crimes should take responsibilty but rather men in general.

The attitude of society to Sutcliffe, as opposed to the attitude of the legal and medical profession, is that he is a deeply evil man who should have either been executed or put in prison with no possibility of parole.

(via Julia in the comments)

Two Foots In The Grave

I was away from computer when I heard that Michael Foot had passed away, my immediate thought was 'how many people are going to make the "One Foot in the grave" gag?'

At the time of writing the number is 34 according to google blogsearch.

Shame on you for your predictability! And your accuracy, the "One Foot in the grave" line should have only been used when Paul Foot died because there are now clearly two Foots (er Feet?) in the grave.

Anyway Michael Foot seemed like a decent enough man who would have been catastrophic as PM.

Zionist Non Plot

Hamas normally blame everything from political setbacks to natural disasters on Zionist conspiracies, yet when faced with an actual conspiracy that almost certainly involves Israel you'd think they would feel vindicated by an actual Zionist conspiracy, but no that turns out to be the one thing that isn't Israel's fault!

He Is Healed!

The Yorkshire Ripper should not be released.

However from the perspective of those who genuinely believe that he was simply suffering an illness- as the courts presumably do having classified him as insane- I can't see any good reason to keep him locked up if his medical team say that he's been cured of murdervitus.