UK Commentators

Fear And Loathing ....

2009-11-21T16:41:00.003Z

in Staines, as the suburb awaits the arrival of Millwall's travelling support and the possible destruction of the borough. 462 comments so far.

Left Voices Outrage At Betrayal of Working Class

2009-11-20T19:41:00.002Z

Working class white boys are officially the worst-performing group in English primary schools, official figures show. Fewer than half of white British boys from the poorest homes started secondary education with a decent grounding in the basics last summer, it was disclosed. Only 48 per cent of 11-year-olds eligible for free school lunches reached the standard expected of their age group in English and maths. Figures published by the Government on Thursday show they fell further behind their classmates over the last 12 months. The disclosure comes amid fears that thousands of white British boys from deprived areas risk being turned into an educational “underclass” as they fall further behind their classmates. They are already less likely to get good GCSEs, go to university and get a good job than most other pupils.

Almost 600,000 children took Sats in English and maths this summer. Figures published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families on Thursday represent an official breakdown of results by ethnicity, gender and deprivation. White British boys on free meals were the lowest achieving group behind Gypsy, Roma and traveller pupils, although they account for fewer than 700 children. Nationally, some 71.8 per cent of pupils reached level 4 – the standard expected of their age – in the two subjects. It meant working-class white British boys were 23.8 percentage points behind. The gap has grown since last year when it stood at 23.1 percentage points.

There are 31,237 white British boys that are eligible for free meals – the Government’s standards measure of poverty. Among white British boys who are not eligible for free lunches, 74.2 per cent reached level 4. Some 51.6 per cent of poor black boys hit the target, along with 54.7 per cent of poor boys from a Pakistani background and 54.2 per cent of boys with a mixed heritage. Boys and girls from Chinese backgrounds were the highest performers, with 81.8 per cent of pupils hitting official targets in English and maths.

Naturally the left bloggers are in uproar about these figures.

Socialist Unity

* tumbleweed blows across road *

Liberal Conspiracy

* you wait. Time passes. Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold.*

Bloggers4Labour

* a bus passes the Radcliffe Road end *

Hmmm. Must be 'mission accomplished'.

(the only coverage I can see is at Conservative Home, FWTW.)

Nasty ...

2009-11-18T11:46:00.004Z

I blogged a while back the state-facilitated thievery of Russian 'capitalism' as experienced by asset manager Hermitage.

Foreign investors get ripped off all the time in many countries. What makes this story unique is the state officials working together to steal $230m from the Russian state itself. The sharks have started to feed on their own blood.
What makes it even more worrying is that the Russian government took no action to recover the money when we reported the crime. Rather than going after the rogue officials and criminals, the government turned the full weight of the law enforcement apparatus against us for reporting it. They arrested our lawyer, Sergey Magnitsky, who uncovered the tax rebate fraud. He has since been kept in pre-trial detention on cases I believe were fabricated.

Telegraph :

A lawyer representing Hermitage Capital Management, the fund manager, has died in jail amid a dispute between the fund's co-founder Bill Browder and Russian authorities. The death of Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year old father of two, is set to reignite concerns about investing and doing business in Russia. Irina Dudukina, a spokeswoman for the investigative committee of the Interior Ministry in Moscow, told The Moscow Times that Mr Magnitsky had died of heart failure and toxic shock.

I don'ty know what the word is for this sort of political system. It's got some medieval features, some gangster features, some free(ish) market features heavily moderated by the gangsterism and powerbroking, all wrapped in something marked 'democracy'.

UPDATE - more here and details of Magnitsky's formal complaint (in September) to the prison authorities over his treatment here.

Gangsters

2009-11-17T10:36:00.002Z

I mentioned a while back City Journal's piece on The Mexicanization of American Law Enforcement as drug cartels extend their corrupting influence northward, helped by the porous border and the lack of political will to deal with millions of illegal immigrants.

In fact Obama is reviving GW Bush's amnesty plan.

With unemployment in the double digits, Americans losing their homes and borders that remain unsecured, Janet Napolitano, Department of Homeland Security Secretary has decided to resurrect the 2007 McCain/Kennedy/Bush immigration reform failure to pay off Obama’s political debts to certain special interest groups.

As a result, on Saturday there were more than 50 anti-amnesty rallies held around the nation protesting the Obama’s Administration’s attempt to shove another unwanted program onto Americans who are struggling to stay afloat.

The number one issue on American’s mind is “it’s the economy stupid.” A lagging economy coupled with a withering job market hardly seems like the ideal time to dump an estimated 20 million illegal aliens into the U.S. job market.

The Secure Communities program is another agenda DHS touts as a success. However, many look to the program as another reason amnesty is doomed to fail. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) nabbed more than 111,000 criminal aliens in one year. Great. But the new program has only deported 9,500 criminal illegal aliens. This leaves more than 100,000 criminal aliens in America.

The statistics in the state of California are even more staggering. The illegal inmates residing in California prisons tally 30 percent, one-third of all births are to illegal immigrants and the FBI reports most of the Latino MS13 gang members are here illegally. Los Angeles’ sanctuary city status forbids Los Angeles police officers to question the legal status of the most violent gang members in the country.

That bit about not deporting foreign criminals feels awfully familiar. But the point is that the south-western United States in becoming more like Mexico. The Latino gangs north of the border are forging links with the cartels to the south.

The BBC report on La Familia (on the western, LA side of Mexico) and the Guardian on the Zetas (eastern, Houston side) - but this is not only a Mexican problem :

Within the US, the Zetas' influence is widespread – cells operating across the country, distributing drugs, their contacts laundering money through established banks and other channels.
Across the Rio Grande, in the burgeoning Texan city of McAllen, a businessman with family roots in the area for 150 years said that not only had the Zetas sealed off the bridges around Reynosa, but international bridges into the United States as well.
"The Americans do nothing, the press says nothing, but they do it to show us all – this side and that – that they can control traffic across the border. I get a call sometimes, ahead of time, telling me, 'Get what you need shipped over before noon, we're shutting it down.'

Via FaceRight, who I'm glad to see posting again, In The Hat blog chronicles the LA/Mexico connections.

What we're talking about here is a developing phenomenon that first showed up along the border and making its way into our local neighborhoods. Based on information from reliable sources, border cops making their usual intercepts of migrant workers are also coming across Mexican nationals already tattooed up with U.S. gang identifiers. Basically these individuals already have some working or personal relationships with U.S. street gangs even though some of them have never been north.

I was recently sent some unpublished photos of the aftermath of the big Tijuana shootout between Mexican Federal Police and some cartel shooters. At least two of the cartel guys appeared to have been shot in their vehicles while trying to blast their way out of the perimeter. It's interesting to note that both vehicles wore California license plates. That's a fairly clear indication that the cartels are operating freely on both sides of the fence and probably have allies they can count on to run whatever business needs to be run.

All the indicators are pointing to some troubling times ahead for local and Federal U.S. law enforcement.

In The Hat blogger Tony Rafael is the author of The Mexican Mafia and he's a worried man.

The massacre at Fort Hood this week has made headlines around the world. As it should. Contrast this event, however, to the massacre of union leader Margarito Montes Parra and 14 family members and associates in Sonora, Mexico last week. The Parra event barely broke through the background news noise. The Times and some other big papers covered it but it barely caused a blip on the average American's radar screen.

We're at a point where wholesale slaughter in Mexico is the norm rather than the exception. We've slowly been de-sensitized to Mexican drug violence to a point where it will take a 9/11 type event to finally wrap the public's head around the fact that Mexico is augering in like a lawn dart. And if it goes, we'll be sharing the border with a nation that resembles Afghanistan more than it does Canada.

...

The big fear, or course is that this level of paramilitary organized violence will eventually seep across the border. As Mexico has been de-sensitized, we're been also being immunized to body counts. Eight years after the Twin Towers fell, we've got a significant portion of the population that has already given up the fight and urging the administration to do something other than kill the Islamists responsible for 9/11. If 3,000 plus dead isn't enough to sustain a vigorous search and destroy mission, how quickly will those same people shy away from a fight when only a dozen or so civilians are cut down by a cartel assassination squad on U.S. soil?

He also recommends this book.

For the student of the subject, this book is a no brainer for acquisition. You just gotta have it in the library if you're going to speak with authority on the subject. For cops, correctional officers and prosecutors, the book is invaluable for doing the job. The people who should be forced to read this book, or have it read to them while jetting around the country or riding in the back of chauffered limos are the politicians and policy makers. Policy decisions and laws cannot and should not be made based on information filtered through staff panels, social scientists, mis-informed or biased "advocates, " or groups who have a financial interest in the outcome of policies.

Algeria Wuz Robbed ?

2009-11-14T21:06:00.006Z

I don't know. Algeria only needed to win, draw or lose to Egypt by less than two goals to qualify for the World Cup.

Algeria arrived in Cairo two days ago. As their bus left the airport, it was attacked with rocks :

“They struck our bus with large bricks,” said a distraught Antar Yahia. "Players have open head wounds with blood. We were lying down in the bus. All the windows were broken. It makes you fear for your life. As long as our lives are not assured we’re afraid to play this match."

Yahia then went on to say that the security guards dispatched for the team did nothing in response to the attacks.

“They let them do it. You can’t launch five kilo rocks from 50 meters. They let them do it and watched. It’s shameful. In our home game we welcomed them with flowers,” he continued.

The Egyptian press accused the players of faking their head injuries.

In the game ? 1-0 to Egypt at the end of normal time. Six minutes added time awarded.

Egypt score in the fifth minute of added time to draw level with Algeria at the top of the group. Egypt 2 Algeria 0. They'll play off in Sudan on Wednesday. Khartoum ? Or Omdurman ?

Apparently the last time they met in similar circumstances, in 1989 :

As an Egyptian player who took part in the match in 1989 recently recalled:

It was an incredible atmosphere. The stadium was full five hours before the game [...] The Algeria team was full of stars and on the pitch it was very crazy; 11 fights between every player. Everybody forgot what the coaches had to say and just fought instead. It was a battle, not a football match. It was like our war against Israel in 1973.

The already tense atmosphere that day got worse when the Algerian team concluded that Egypt’s winning goal was scored by a player in an offside position (although video of the goal available on the Internet today seems to show that it was correctly allowed). After the match, the Algerians surrounded and harassed the referee and then fought with Egyptian supporters — one of whom was blinded by broken glass.

UPDATE - on consideration, the female of the species .... far from the passions of Cairo, New Mexico's defender Elizabeth Lambert displays 'some questionable plays' ... nasty. I'm not sure I've seen much rougher than that - and I don't mean her looks.

Friday Night Is Music Night

2009-11-13T19:52:00.004Z

The man can sing ...

Meet The New Boss ...

2009-11-12T20:52:00.002Z

A PR company called Open Road has put together a Guide to Blue Labour (pdf). No dirt-digging here, just a list of potential movers and shakers as seen by said PR company, doubtless with an eye to the future (via Clive Davis' new blog).

Charles Murray ...

2009-11-12T17:48:00.003Z

has a blog.

Here he is on the shambles of US healthcare reform :

There is a sound argument for treating health insurance the way we treat life insurance. We can buy life insurance at a constant affordable payment when we are young because our young unlikely-to-die-soon selves subsidize our old certain-to-die-soon selves. Similarly: If we were to go to a health insurance company at age 21 and say, “I will commit to a policy from now until I die,” the health insurance company could give us an affordable rate because our young healthy selves would subsidize our old unhealthy selves. We haven’t treated health insurance that way, but there’s no economic reason we couldn’t.

The bill the Finance Committee passed originally applied a variant of that principle, requiring young people to buy insurance, thereby subsidizing the costs of requiring insurance companies to accept everyone, including those with pre-existing conditions.

Then, for political reasons, the Finance Committee gutted the requirement for young people to buy insurance, making the penalties so low that it destroys the coherence of the bill. Of course large numbers of young people won’t buy insurance if the penalties are a few hundred dollars. Of course large numbers of them will wait, knowing that they can apply once they’ve got a health problem and the insurance companies will have to accept them. This is not a “plausible possibility.” It is 100 percent sure to happen. And because it will happen, health insurance premiums will rise dramatically—because the legal requirement that health insurance companies accept everyone will not be modified no matter what. And then the whole system will break down, and Congress will come back in to try to repair a program that was transparently, obviously unworkable from the outset.

I’m not writing as a libertarian who doesn’t think government should run healthcare. I’m writing as a citizen who is sick unto death of politicians being stupid.

Major Hasan on Islam in the US Military

2009-11-12T11:06:00.002Z

His 2007 Powerpoint presentation to the US Army. Hmm.

Do You Like Good Music ?

2009-11-11T20:49:00.004Z

Good black music ?

Milk Crate Breaks has oodles of obscure stuff. I'd tried to buy Gil Scott-Heron's 'Bridges' a year or three back, and it was no longer available, so it was wonderful to discover it here. Not what you'd call militant Gil, and all the better for it IMHO. The man is laid back to the point of horizontality.

(Mea culpa - you can get it as from May 2009 on Amazon UK)

UPDATE - Sgt Troy isn't too pleased with the black music he hears these days. Neither's the great John McWhorter, here on video or here in print.

I Do Hope This Is True ...

2009-11-11T14:59:00.003Z

... but it seems too good for words.

The remains of a legendary 50,000-strong army which was swallowed up in a cataclysmic sandstorm in the Sahara Desert 2,500 years ago are believed to have been found. Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, twin brothers, have discovered bronze weapons and hundreds of human bones which they reckon are the remains of the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. According to the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BC), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent the soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa in 525BC. Their mission was to destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimise his claim to Egypt.

If they really have found the remains of Cambyses' army, it would be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time. The dry desert should have hopefully preserved weapons and armour - and what of the paymasters' bullion, and the loot ?

There's only one slight problem. According to Capt W.E. Johns, the lost army was discovered by Biggles, Algy and Ginger in the late 1930s. It was also discovered by oil prospectors in 2000.

Australia's Daily Grind reports that the 2500 years the Persian force has spent in the sands of the Sahara Desert is being seen as a warning against a policy of ‘stay the course’, and that "Iran has denied intending to destroy the Temple of Ammon, saying the 50,000-strong army was part of its civilian nuclear programme".

It's Not A Conspiracy ...

2009-11-09T11:06:00.002Z

It's just the way they are. From the diaries of former Cabinet Minister (and protector of the Birmingham pub bombers' identities) Chris Mullin, serialised in the Mail :

January 21, 2004
To the Parliamentary Party, where there was discussion about the next Queen's Speech. Ann Cryer [MP] said we needed a managed immigration policy, based on ability to find jobs; not on finding a wife or husband with a British passport, which is putting enormous pressure on young Asians.
Jon Owen Jones [MP] told a story about an Algerian who had brought three people into the country by marrying and divorcing three times. It was all a scam, he said, and time we put a stop to it. Amen to that.
Despite the hoo-ha over asylum, we've barely touched the rackets that surround arranged marriages. What mugs we are.
The trouble is we are terrified of the huge cry of 'racism' that would go up the moment anyone breathed a word on the subject. There is the added difficulty that at least 20 Labour seats, including [Foreign Secretary] Jack Straw's, depend on Asian votes.

Yazza Comes Home

2009-11-08T18:37:00.006Z

This blog on the very wonderful (and infuriating) Yasmin 'Yazza' Alibhai Brown, way back in July 2004 :

"The Mail is your natural destiny, Yasmin. Don't fight it"

A couple of months earlier, after an Indie piece that conjured the spirit of the late Mary Whitehouse, I'd written :

Is this the start of the long spiritual odyssey that can surely lead to no other place than the opinion pages of the Daily Mail ? Good luck, Yasmin. You'll need it. But you have the stomach for the fight. Aye, and the liver too.

And at last that destination has been reached. Where others saw an anti-Brit leftie whinger, I saw an anti-Brit social conservative - admittedly with a chip on each shoulder, but with a certain honesty and fairness that she couldn't keep out of her work.

I hadn't realised, but she's been writing for them since July with absolutely classic Mail stuff. I told you they were made for each other.

Yes, of course, divorce shatters lives. So why DO we pretend it's an easy option?

How many more teen pregnancies before the Left admits its sex education has been a disaster?

Her latest is a bit of a classic too.

Why are so many black and Asian women desperate to be white?

And it's attracted an answer from Steve Sailer :

You might think that with all the media interest in this question, journalists might occasionally look up on Google something about anthropologist Peter Frost's book "Fair Women, Dark Men: The Forgotten Roots of Color Prejudice", which answers the question. But, nah, finding out the answer is hardly the point of asking, so Frost's book is almost unknown.

Not just an answer, but a teensy digette, too. Yazza's piece is "from the always reliable Daily Mail of London, the umpteenth confirmation of Sailer's Rule of Female Journalism".

And what's Sailer's Rule of Female Journalism ?

The most heartfelt articles by female journalists tend to be demands that social values be overturned in order that, Come the Revolution, the journalist herself will be considered hotter-looking.

Mmmiiiaaaoooowwww !!!!

Murder in the Community

2009-11-07T12:47:00.005Z

Bodmin - skip the torture of those with 'learning difficulties' and go straight from bullying to murder :

Kerry Ollerenshaw, a care worker and a friend of the family said Raum Fox has learning difficulties and had been "harassed". She added: "I can't believe someone would be callous enough to put a firework through a letter box." Classmate Brett Millington, 17, said Raum had been moved from Bodmin College to St Austell College to escape the bullies, who made fun of his acne. "Raum was a social outcast and always kept himself to himself. He never socialised with anyone in or out of school," he said. "He was badly bullied. It wasn't all physical but a lot of psychological abuse he suffered. Kids would make fun of his bad acne and call him 'spotty' and made fun of his greasy hair. When he was at Bodmin his mum Mary Fox would walk him to school every day because the bullying was so bad. But if anything that just made it worse."

A police spokesman said reports a firework was pushed through their letterbox was "speculation" and the cause was not yet known.

Sparkbrook

2009-11-07T12:40:00.003Z

Roy Hattersley, Labour MP for Sparkbrook 1964-1997, on representing his voters.

For most of my 33 years in Westminster, I was able to resist Sparkbrook's demands about the great issues of national policy – otherwise, my first decade would have been spent opposing all Commonwealth immigration and my last calling for withdrawal from the European Union.

Of course the voters of his last decade weren't the voters of his first decade.

UPDATE - and then he writes this. I hate to sound like Sgt Troy, but is hanging too good for him ?

Reality 1, Satire 0 (again)

2009-11-06T18:04:00.002Z

From Liberal Conspiracy :

A rally is being held for Professor David Nutt tomorrow. Called by the group Students for Sensible Drugs Policy UK, they say it is being held in support of evidence based drugs policy.

Students for Sensible Drugs Policy ? Isn't that an oxymoron ?

"the moral equivalent of climate change"

2009-11-06T13:00:00.003Z

As so often, it takes a minority spokesman (or woman) to say the unsayable in this country :

Europe is "dying" because its citizens are too selfish to have children, the chief rabbi has said, blaming a dwindling birthrate on a culture of "consumerism and instant gratification". Sir Jonathan Sacks accused people of caring more about shopping than spirituality and tied the secularisation of Europe to population decline.

"Europe today is the most secular region in the world. Europe is the only region in the world experiencing population decline. Wherever you turn today the more religious the community, the larger on average are their families. Parenthood involves massive sacrifice: money, attention, time and emotional energy. Where today, in European culture with its consumerism and its instant gratification because you're worth it."

There was no room for sacrifice for "the sake of generations not yet born" in such a culture.

In Lionel Shriver's words : "We shun values such as self-sacrifice and duty as the pitfalls of suckers. We give little thought to the perpetuation of lineage, culture or nation; we take our heritage for granted. We are ahistorical. We measure the value of our lives within the brackets of our own births and deaths, and don't especially care what happens once we're dead."

"Europe is dying," he concluded and compared the situation in the continent today to ancient Greece with its "sceptics, epicureans and cynics". He said: "That is one of the unsayable truths of our time. We are undergoing the moral equivalent of climate change and no one is talking about it." Religion was the safeguard of morality and the decline of religion would lead to fragile families and communities in atrophy.

Not much to argue with there, I'd say. My secular Jewish friends are just as poor at sprogging as any post-Christian. Not so for the faithful :

The UK's Jewish population is growing for the first time since World War II, research suggests. The rise appears to be due to a growth in the size of ultra-orthodox Jewish families, according to researchers at the University of Manchester. The population fell to a historic low of 275,000 in 2005, but that figure has since increased to 280,000 in 2008... Dr Wise calculates the proportion of Jews in the UK now is only about a quarter of its peak. Dr Wise - who says his research is based on regular monitoring of Jewish births - attributes the decline in the Jewish population to the fact that about half of more secular Jews marry outside the community, and many of them do not bring their children up as Jewish.

He says secular Jewish women - coming from a relatively well-educated and prosperous section of society - have had on average only 1.65 children. The UK average is 1.8. However, the very high birth-rate of the minority of strictly orthodox - also referred to as ultra-orthodox - Jewish families is having an increasing impact on the population as a whole. They marry young - often in their early twenties or even late teens - and have an average of almost seven children.

It means that elderly people in the community can have hundreds of descendents. Although other researchers have made more conservative estimates of growth among strictly orthodox Jews, Dr Wise says almost three of every four Jewish babies are now being born to them. He calculates that at current trends strictly orthodox Jews will outnumber their more secular counterparts by the middle of the century.

The Guardian's report is not quite kosher, in that Dr Sacks didn't exactly say 'Europe is dying'. His words were (a/c/t the Telegraph) :

“Europe, at least the indigenous population of Europe, is dying. That is one of the unsayable truths of our time"

Which raises the ire of the Daily Telegraph's resident mass immigration enthusiast, George Pitcher :

Lord Sacks was ostensibly attacking our secular, consumerist culture. But a regular canard of European racists is that the Muslim immigrant population is “out-breeding” other ethnicities. They usually add that the name Mohammed is now the most popular boy’s name in some cities. The truth is that immigrant birth-rates settle down to mirror local trends. And the much greater pluralism of non-Muslim names is bound to make the Mohammeds stand out statistically.

But I worry about the Chief Rabbi’s remark that “the indigenous population of Europe is dying”. That “indigenous” is a dangerous word, as Lord Sacks must know. Clarification please.

I haven't a clue what if anything Dr Sacks was implying, nor will I until the Theos thinktank post a full transcript of his speech (update - it's here). But the indigenous population IS dying out - or emigrating - and you wouldn't necessarily blame him for saying so. It's not English neo-Nazis who carry out anti-semitic attacks every time something happens in Judea and Samaria. Mind you, if Dr Wise is right about the Orthodox birth-rate, maybe it's those carrying out the attacks who should be nervous !

(comments off for alas the usual reasons)

Mad Muslim Major Massacres Military

2009-11-06T08:03:00.002Z

A Muslim army psychiatrist opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan opened fire on fellow soldiers at the world's largest military base yesterday killing 12 people dead and wounding at least 31.

To be fair, it could be that the word 'psychiatrist' is also pretty key here, but it would ruin the alliteration. Trick-cyclists, like mental nurses, seem to have an affinity for their speciality.

"Orpington College Is A Well-Known Scum-Magnet"

2009-11-04T14:50:00.003Z

...according to a commenter on this story :

Dozens of college pupils were involved in violent clashes with police yesterday afternoon (November 3), forcing the closure of Orpington High Street. The trouble flared at around 5.25pm when more than 40 Orpington College students waited for a bus outside Boots in the high street. Around 15 of them boarded a route 51 before the driver shut his doors and a patrolling PCSO told the remaining teenagers they would have to wait for the next bus. But instead the youths on the pavement tried to force their way onto the bus, kicking the front and back doors. The violence quickly escalated and a 25-year-old PCSO sustained a cut above his left eye. He was taken to a south London hospital by ambulance. Two other police officers were also struck during the incident. The high street was shut for around an hour while police fought running battles with the teenagers.

Seven teenagers, all Orpington College pupils, were arrested including three 18-year-old women from Lewisham, Greenwich and Belvedere. Two boys from Lewisham and Greenwich, aged 16 and 17, were also arrested, along with a 19-year-old man from Erith. A 17-year-old girl from Dartford was also arrested during the disturbance.

Comments :

Please, Bromley Council, take a close look at this establishment and if the current ineffective leadership at the college needs replacing then please do it before someone ends up being killed. It nearly happened last year with the stabbing outside the college and things are getting worse.

We were there yesterday and saw some of what went on - these reports are not sensationalised! Orpington college is an utter disgrace to the local community and it's about time action was taken against that proportion of it's students who routinely behave like animals on their way to/from it.

Yes it is the college students,but not the local ones,always the students who travel into orpington to go to the college.

Are these students paid £30 to attend, I wonder? When this country was still sane, only the clever kids stayed on at school and went to college. Now, because the government wants to fiddle the unemployment figures, all the riff-raff are staying on and spoiling it for the students who actually want to learn.

As a paper informing the public, you need to get your facts straight!! I was on that bus! there wernt 40 pupils at the bus stop, more like 100 (and about 60 police officers) behaving like animals because they have to wait to get on. The police officer didnt get a slash to the face, he got stabbed. Every monday and tuesday this stupid behaviour happens usually resulting in the bus driver turning off the engine. the school kids in the morning have their own bus, 1 needs to be provided at 5PM for the college lot then they can do what they want to each other( which is usually fighting upstairs!) instead of making the public who actually want to get home from work wait 2 hours!!!!!! When the kids who were upstairs causing trouble had to wait to be searched as they got off the bus, the police officers were saying sorry for the inconvinience to THEM!! what about the passengers that had to wait????? Passengers who used their last money on their oyster cards had no other way of getting home, and the police wernt bothered!

Levi Strauss Dies at 101

2009-11-04T14:35:00.003Z

That's according to Norm, anyway. I'd not realised he was still alive. I could have sworn he was selling hard-wearing jeans, sewn in his patent triple-seam 'structuralist' stitching, to Californian miners in the 1850s.

Afghanistan - Two Churchill Quotes

2009-11-04T13:35:00.003Z

From his History of the Second World War (I paraphrase) :

"When two armies approach each other it makes all the difference in the world which one owns only the ground it stands on and which owns all the rest. We saw this in the South African conflict, where we owned nothing beyond the light of our campfires, whereas the Boers rode where they pleased all over the country".

And from this post :

"And the young men hearing these things will grip their Martinis, and pray to Allah, that one day He will bring some Sahib - best prize of all - across their line of sight at seven hundred yards so that, at least, they may strike a blow for insulted and threatened Islam."

Almost Lost - Detroit ...

2009-11-03T19:09:00.003Z

Hard times in the former Motor City. As City Journal reports :

Today, officials estimate, the city contains an astonishing 70,000 abandoned structures—many of them houses, but also some commercial properties. In downtown Detroit alone, a local newspaper identified 48 office buildings with “no outward sign of life.”

That’s not surprising, considering how many people have fled Detroit over the decades. Over the last half-century, the city’s population has shrunk by 50 percent, from about 1.8 million people to fewer than 900,000. Since 2000, the city has lost 35,000 residents. Detroit officials acknowledge that they see little prospect for a population turnaround soon.

The Sweet Juniper blog pictures some of the empty homes :

Can't see that happening in the former Motor City of Brum, no matter how far down the tubes it goes - this country's just too crowded. When we were over the water a couple of years back we saw abandoned houses outside Bakersfield (CA) and in Arizona - not to mention in Death Valley Junction, a place which has seen better days.

Also in CJ - The Mexicanization of American Law Enforcement as drug cartels extend their corrupting influence northward.

Evidently Savile Town - more unpleasantness in Dewsbury :

Insp Jenny Thompson, of Dewsbury police, described the attack on Mr Dyson as “nasty” and appealed for witnesses. She said she did not believe Savile Town was a ‘no-go’ area at night despite a number of unrelated incidents recently.

Sad in every sense - a young man killing himself on a bike he shouldn't have been riding, and the ensuing txtspk tributes/debate.

Brilliant

2009-11-02T18:29:00.002Z

While I do have some sympathy with MPs over the idiocy that's now taking over the expenses saga (what's wrong with employing your wife ? Do you have to sack your secretary if you marry her?) , I'm not quite sure that we're late-30s Germany yet, with MPs as Jews.

Ross has the perfect line for the MP who drew this infelicitous parallel.

More Nutt ...

2009-11-02T10:16:00.004Z

Blimey. The Tories are right about something. As Conservative Home puts it :

The Conservatives - who also disagree with the ACMD position on cannabis - backed the decision to sack Professor Nutt. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling issued this statement:
“This was an inevitable decision after his latest ill-judged contribution to the debate but it is a sign of lack of focus at the Home Office that it didn’t act sooner given that he has done this before.”

As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) Nutt offered advice, HMG didn't take it, Nutt threw toys out of pram. Not by publishing figures which showed (I leave methodology etc out of it*) that cannabis was less dangerous than alcohol/fags, something which is quite possible, but by explicitly saying the decision was wrong. At which point you can see why Alan Johnson lost patience with him. How can you ask someone for advice if the deal is that you HAVE to accept it or the adviser will go public on his disgreements ? At that point you may as well hand over policy to the adviser and democracy goes out of the window.

(* As for his brilliant insight that ecstasy is less dangerous than horse-riding, shooting up smack is a lot safer than climbing in the Himalayas - something which the government has no intention of outlawing. Therefore why on earth is heroin illegal ?

And anyone who thinks scientists are a bunch of disinterested, non-political types doesn't know anything about the history of science. Scientific disputes can be some of the nastiest around and can make politics look almost clean.

And on skunk, see the comments to my earlier post. That weed is a lot more powerful than the stuff Jacqui Smith used to smoke and Bill Clinton failed to inhale.)

UPDATE - Professor Bruce Charlton (of whom more in a day or two) on foolish people of high intelligence. Love the ending :

I should in all honesty point-out that I recognize this phenomenon from the inside. In other words, I myself am a prime example of a ‘clever silly’; having spent much of adolescence and early adult life passively absorbing high-IQ-elite-approved, ingenious-but-daft ideas that later needed, painfully, to be dismantled. I have eventually been forced to acknowledge that when it comes to the psycho-social domain, the commonsense verdict of the majority of ordinary people throughout history is much more likely to be accurate than the latest fashionably-brilliant insight of the ruling elite. So, this article has been written on the assumption, eminently-challengeable, that although I have nearly-always been wrong in the past – I now am right….

Seeing Is Believing

2009-10-30T21:28:00.002Z

I wonder how long this ebay ad will stay up ... (via)