Why are judges such muppets?

This is not a comment about the rights and wrongs of immigration in the US but the stupidity of judges.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22664299

"The office of an Arizona lawman who styles himself America's toughest sheriff improperly targeted Hispanics in routine patrols for undocumented immigrants, a federal judge has found."

Now if a sheriff targets Mexicans as illegal immigrants when he is 20 miles from the Mexican border how can that be wrong? He clearly isn't having problems from other countries.

As a side note as far as I am concerned the sheriff is suitably tough on criminals.

Sheriff Arpaio set up a "Tent City" as an extension of the Maricopa County jail. During the summer of 2003, when outside temperatures exceeded 110 °F (43 °C), Arpaio said to complaining inmates, "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents, have to wear full body armor, and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths."

Craven - the English have gone.

So an ethnically challenged b@st@rd hacks a guy to death in the streets of London and everyone just stands back and records it on their phones?  It takes a woman to confront him and no man gets involved.

Clearly vast quantities of white feathers need plucking.

Will the last Englishman go back to London.  You left the lights on.

I am too disgusted to rant.

Tyranny of the sheep

As a libertarian, a goat in society, I like to think most people treasure freedom.   I know I am kidding myself.

Most people dislike, nay hate, personal freedom.  Most people, the sheep, want nothing more than for someone else to take responsibility for their lives.  Freedom scares them.  Freedom means they have to think about and plan for the future.  Most people don't even bother to make a will despite the fact that the inevitability of death makes this an obvious thing to plan for.

Simply put the sheeple will vote or campaign for someone, anyone, to take care of them.  Loss of liberty is meaningless to them. The sheeple are the people who vote for the mainstream and extremist parties.  They will always vote for perceived security over liberty.

I hang out in the libertarian blogosphere. However this is a personal comfort blanket which hides the depressing fact that most people are freedom hating sheep and always will be.

Colonialist BBC

The BBC, while being bien pensant and continually spouting anti-colonialist sentiments, is actually institutionally colonialist.

Let me explain.  A number of British people went to work in Algeria, a known unstable country with a history of civil war and Islamic terrorists.  Said workers will have known this and accepted the risks.  Then terrorists grab the workers in a raid on a gas plant in a remote area of Algeria.

Then shock horror from the Beeb. The Algerian military take what they consider is appropriate action, based on their experience of the terrorists, on their own soil. "What?" says the Beeb, "they didn't wait for the UK to give permission or to send in the SAS?" "Their forces are good by local standards but not up to ours".  A damning colonialist sentiment.

It appears there was some collateral damage, something the Beeb takes in it's stride in Afghanistan, Pakisatan, Iraq, Sierre Leone, ... and now by the French in Mali. The Beeb treats collateral damage lightly when it only involves locals going about their daily lives.

Now, shock horror, some of the British workers appear to be involved in the collateral damage. But they were there by choice, knowing the risks. Why is collateral damage only an issue when the British are on the receiving end?  A damning racist sentiment.

Heads they win tails you lose, climate tossers

So which is it? Will England get dryer or wetter? They haven't a clue and reckon they can forecast climate for the next century. Tossers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/3334871/South-East-same-as-Sahara-for-drought-risk.html

"The report, by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, already classifies a swathe of the South East of the country in the same bracket as the Sahara.

This is because of the availability of water per head of the population. This drought-prone area is expected to expand significantly because there is expected to be less summer rainfall as a result of global warming and because the population of London and the South East is expected to grow."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20898729

"The Met Office added that four of the top five wettest years had occurred since 2000.

Top five wettest years in the UK

1. 2000 - 1,337.3mm

2. 2012 - 1,330.7mm

3. 1954 - 1,309.1 mm

4. 2008 - 1,295.0mm

5. 2002 - 1,283.7mm

(Source: Met Office)

Job Protection

I welcome last week's decision to allow academy schools to employ real, un-indoctrinated, people to teach. And of course there is now the inevitable response.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19076852

"An education expert has condemned a government decision to let academies in England hire unqualified teachers."

"Professor Chris Husbands, director of the Institute of Education at London University said the plan contradicted national and international evidence."

"There is simply no research evidence at all to suppose that lowering the bar and recruiting significant numbers of unqualified teachers will do anything other than lower standards."

However public schools already employ teachers who have not been through the indoctrination system and funnily enough these schools achieve better results.

As far as I can see Husbands comments are a blatant attempt to keep monopoly control of teaching so as to protect the pathetic, qualified, specimens from the rigour of being exposed as useless. I am sure he also wishes to make sure all teachers are indoctrinated in the correct socio-political views.

Poverty?

The Government along with the guilt trip organizations such as the Child Poverty Action group use relative poverty as a guide to child poverty in the UK.  The poverty line is set at 60% of average earnings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18436795

Child poverty down as household income drops shouts the BBC.

The number of children living in poverty in the UK fell by 300,000 last year as household incomes dropped, official figures have revealed.

Only the innumerate, such as all the media, will be surprised that in a recession poverty decreases. Wages have dropped and more people are unemployed so the average wage has gone down but benefits haven't. Hey presto 300,000 less poor.

Are the new un-poor better off than they were? Were they even poor in the first place?