It’s not up to anyone else to make the BNP look stupid; they can do that perfectly well for themselves

I’m no fan of the BNP and my feelings about them parallel those of internet YouTuber Pat Condell:

“I believe the BNP has a racial agenda and is therefore a racist party so I would rather vote for nobody at all in fact I’d rather drive a garden fork through my own foot than vote for the BNP.”

Having grown up in Britain watching the National Front marching around and after seeing pretty much the same type of people morph into the more respectable-sounding British National Party, I don’t need to be constantly reminded that there are a few fascists in the woodwork. Nazis are Nazis and no matter what clothes or insignia they wear they are always easy to identify from their one-track agenda the general stink that surrounds them.

The BNP are bigoted people out there in the open for all to see, despise and ridicule and as long as they are permitted to remain in plain view then everyone can see them for what they really are. People are not stupid and don’t need to be continually reminded about the dangers. They don’t need government departments, quangos and self-righteous autonomous groups to be constantly keeping the BNP at bay in misguided attempts to provide  a “public service”.

I never thought I’d ever be writing an article or post defending the BNP but here it is. Let’s get it over with so that I can wash my hands of this keyboard all the sooner and rinse the sour taste out of my mouth.

I’m a libertarian and believe in the importance and power of free speech in any truly free society. My view echoes that well known saying:

“I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it?” (Attributed to Voltaire)

As I understand it, the BNP are a legal and legitimate political party. The British New Labour government (which happens to be in direct competition with the BNP) has already imposed what I consider to be unfair restrictions on its membership by forbidding police and members of the armed forces from joining. Members of these organisations and many others must at least declare openly their BNP interests.

Today we saw the Equality and Human Rights Commission commence a legal action against the BNP over “concerns about ethnic restrictions on its membership”. (The BNP restricts membership to those to whom it refers as “Indigenous Caucasians” and this, of course, is a crude euphemism for white people.)

Surely the Equality and Human Rights Commission exists to open doors for those people who find themselves discriminated against on the grounds of race. In this particular case however, it is not so much fighting for the rights of non-whites to join an elitist organisation; I mean really! How many non-white people or even white people actually want to join the BNP anyway? Are there hoards (if you’ll excuse the word) of non-whites queuing up to join the BNP. I don’t see the protest. It would be the equivalent of black African Americans having waited in line to join the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s. It didn’t happen then and it is not happening now.

What is happening is that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is using tax-payers money, as so many various different quangos and government departments have done in the past, firstly to try and make an example of the BNP and secondly to give itself a few “brownie points” and a big pat on the back.

There are many organisations that restrict membership. I’d be laughed at if I sent in an application to join the Women’s Institute and any serving white police officer would be refused membership of the Black Police Officer’s Association. Both women’s and men’s golf clubs litter the rural greens of England. Using the argument against the BNP is just an excuse.

So I say leave the BNP alone. Leave them to practice their own partitive brand of foolishness so that all may see how stupid they are. In a free society having obnoxious groups such as the BNP is the price we must all pay for freedom. There is no other way save authoritarianism.

See:
“Legal action over BNP membership” (BBC News 24.08.09)

Filed under: News, Stupidity, Black Police Officers Association, BNP, British National Party, EHRC, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Women's Institute

And God said “Let there be light (but only if you’re using energy-saving bulbs)”

Last one to leave the country please remember to turn off the light

As a libertarian I find it mind-bogglingly astounding that we should have reached a point in “democratic” history when we are so conditioned that we think nothing of letting our own government poke its nose into those places where it so obviously doesn’t belong.

From September 1st 2009 it will be illegal for British retailers to sell conventional light bulbs.

If that isn’t hard enough to believe then how about this…

“The public have been asked to ‘snoop’ on shopkeepers who continue to sell traditional light bulbs banned by Europe.” (Telegraph newspaper)

Nigel Farrage, the leader of UKIP, said the public should not be encouraged to snoop. He said:

“Under this Government we begin to resemble East Germany in the 1980s where we snoop and report on local businesses,” he said. “No doubt the next move will be to snoop on your parents if they continue to use old fashioned light bulbs.”

As an atheist I can say “there is no god” but as a British Subject I have to admit that I’m wrong. To all intents and purposes the European Parliament is God.

See:
“Public told to snoop on lightbulb law breakers” (Telegraph 24.08.09)
“Lock up your lightbulbs” (Telegraph 24.09.09 – Comment by Janet Daley)

Filed under: News, Stupidity, European Law, Lightbulbs, Nigel Farrage

Self-censorship – Does Yale University need to take a leaf out of Pat Condell’s book

No Cartoons Here

Yale University Press have just published a book about the Danish cartoons that caused such a fracas among Muslims several years ago – without showing the cartoons.

“The Cartoons That Shook The World” by Danish-born professor Jytte Klausen, is a serious book examining the protest campaign against the caricatures first published in the Danish newspaper “Jyllands-Posten” in 2005. Its publishers, Yale University Press, have said  that having consulted a panel of (anonymous) “experts” it has decided not to include the actual cartoons in the book.

This shameful capitulation, to a threat that has not even been made yet, is a fine example of a disastrous decision having been made by people who Pat Condell would no doubt refer to as “multicultural appeasement monkeys”. Or, to use more of his words, “the kind of people who’d put their own mothers and daughters in birkas to avoid being called intolerant and who occupy such high moral ground that you can hardly see them up there through the clouds of self-righteousness.”

All of these so-called “experts” need to watch his latest video entitled “Apologists for Evil” which was posted on his YouTube channel three weeks ago. I was unable to find a transcript of this video on-line but felt that what he said was so prosaic that one deserved to be made for the benefit of the internet community. So here it is. Are you pathetic pseudo-intellectual idiots at Yale sitting comfortably? Then hit the link below and we’ll begin.

Video and Full Transcript

See also:
“Yale Press Bans Images of Muhammad in New Book” (New York Times)
“Yale Surrenders” by Christopher Hitchens

Filed under: Appeasement for Islam, Islam, News, Special Religious Dispensation, Stupidity, Jyllands-Posten, Jytte Klausen, Pat Condell, The Cartoons That Shook The World, Yale University Press

Richard Dawkins joins the campaign for an apology from the UK government for the prosecution of Alan Turing

In June, Blogger John Graham-Cumming wrote about the injustices done to one of the most famous men in the computer sciences field and to date 3,219 people have signed his on-line petition at the Number Ten website asking that the British government apologise for it’s treatment of the famous scientist.

Alan Turing

Alan Turing is often regarded as the father of modern computing and played a major part in helping to break the German Enigma codes with his “Ultra” team from Bletchley Park but his prosecution in 1952 for being gay led to his chemical castration in a misguided attempt to turn him into a heterosexual man. In 1954 he committed suicide and a great mind was forever lost. Had he lived Turing would  have celebrated his 97th birthday in June.

Richard Dawkins, who has lent his voice to the campaign and who is due to present a program for Channel 4 on Turing said:

“Turing arguably made a greater contribution to defeating the Nazis than Eisenhower or Churchill. Thanks to Turing and his ‘Ultra’ colleagues at Bletchley Park, Allied generals in the field were consistently, over long periods of the war, privy to detailed German plans before the German generals had time to implement them.

“After the war, when Turing’s role was no longer top-secret, he should have been knighted and fêted as a saviour of his nation. Instead, this gentle, stammering, eccentric genius was destroyed, for a ‘crime’, committed in private, which harmed nobody,”

The deadline for the on-line petition is set for January of next year so there is still plenty of time in which to sign it  do so should you wish to do so. (See links below)

See:

On-line Petition at the No.10 website
John Graham-Cumming’s original post on June 23rd (Turing’s birthday)
Bletchley Park website homepage
Alan Turing at Wikipedia

Filed under: Death by Belief, Homosexuality, Stupidity, Alan Turing, Bletchley Park, John Graham-Cumming, Petition, Richard Dawkins

Afghan rape laws for the “modern” world… A husband’s right to have sex a minimum number of times per week has been abolished but now he can legally starve his wife for refusing his sexual demands

Progressive President Hamid Karzei

With Afghanistan in the midst of election fever its “enlightened” and relatively fresh young president, Hamid Karza, has apparently just signed an amended version of the marital rape laws.

The clause that insists that men have the right to sex with their wives a certain number of times a week has been withdrawn and men will only have the right to deny their wives food for withholding sexual favours.

Courts will also be able to grant guardianship of women’s children to fathers and grandfathers should wives be lacking in the lust department.

In addition the “marital rape laws” will grant men who are guilty of the “petty” crime of rape the chance to get away with their crimes so long as they can pay to avoid prosecution.

Reporting in The Times newspaper today Melanie Reid writes:

“[It] would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. The British Army, decent and professional and upstanding as ever, now finds itself fighting to within an inch of the polling stations in order to allow Afghan men to continue mildly unpleasant habits such as withholding food from their wives, insisting on sex and imprisoning them in their own home. (Which makes you wonder exactly what the problem with the Taleban was.)”

See:
“Right to rape: is that what we’re fighting for?”
(The Times 18.08.09)

Filed under: Afghanistan, Islam, Religion, Stupidity, Hamid Karza, Marital Rape Laws, Rape

Flying rabbis attempt to save Israelis from swine flu by getting the horn

Up,up and away with Swine Flu

When I fist read the BBC News headline I had to rub my eyes then I was glad I had rubbed them because I had got it wrong after all. It was not “Flying Rabbits Fight Swine Flu” but rather “Flying Rabbis Fight Swine Flu”. Phew! Now flying rabbits are one thing but flying rabbis are a totally different kettle of fish.

It seems that a whole bunch of rabbis actually boarded a plane and flew over Israel performing a ritual in an effort to protect Israelis against swine flu. How much more normal could it be. The BBC article reports that they were accompanied by Jewish mystics and for a brief moment I wondered what they might be. Then it dawned on me. They are obviously people who are even more experienced in the silly-hats-department than most orthodox Jews, who mutter incantations and spout so much bullshit that even the most devout are taken in by them.

According to Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri their group got into a metal container with wings and presumably a few engines and then blew a horn while they were over Israel to “stop the pandemic so people will stop dying from it”. (Most Israelis don’t refer to the virus “Swine Flu”. Disliking pigs they prefer to call it “H1N1” which is ironic because that is the preferred term used by the World Health Authority WHO (boom, boom) failed miserably in persuading most of the world to actually use it.)

Well now I’ve seen everything.

See:
“Flying rabbis fight swine flu”
BBC (12.08.09)

Filed under: Israel, Judaism, News, Religion, Stupidity, Flying Rabbis, Swine Flu

More “birkini” madness – No longer optional but compulsory at some UK swimming pool sessions

I have just telephoned my local swimming pool in Hornsey and asked if a (fictitious) Muslim friend could use the pool wearing a “birkini”. They told me straight away that she would be welcome. I also said that I had no swimming trunks and asked if I could swim in my jeans shorts. The answer was “no”. They told me that I would have to have “proper” swimming trunks in order to enter the pool.

As if having special swimming times for women wasn’t already bad enough, according to a piece in yesterday’s Telegraph newspaper:

“Across the UK municipal pools are holding swimming sessions specifically aimed at Muslims, in some case imposing strict dress codes.”
and that
“Under the rules, swimmers – including non-Muslims – are barred from entering the pool in normal swimming attire.”

Surely such measures are divisive and fly in the face of common sense and community cohesion. Is this is not bound to cause resentment from non-Muslims towards Muslims?

If I was to go to my local pool dressed in pirate garb on September 19th, which is a holy day for Pastafarians known as “Dress and Talk Like a Pirate Day”, do you think they would let me go for a swim? I wonder.

Having Muslim-only swimming sessions is yet another example of special dispensation for religions. This kind of policy divides people rather than bringing them together and because there are so many religions, taken to its logical conclusion, one that would exclude the majority most of the time.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Maybe the saying “if you can’t beat ’em join ’em” applies here and the only way to show some local councils how truly stupid they are being is for all religions and minorities to demand that they have their own special swimming times. Wouldn’t it be great if atheists could get organised and demand atheist-only sessions so that they could swim in peace without being surrounded by weak-minded faith heads.

See:
“Swimmers are told to wear burkinis”
(Telegraph 15.08.09)

Filed under: Atheism, Islam, Neo-puritanism, News, Special Religious Dispensation, Stupidity, Birkini, Blackbird Leys Swimming Pool, Croydon Council, North Woodside Leisure Centre, Scunthorpe Leisure Centre, Swimming Pools, Thornton Heath Leisure Centre

Road safety is a load of bollards these days

The Autons walk among us

Leicester City Council have found a novel way of adding to the local street furniture by placing plastic children on pavements. They are there in an attempt to make drivers cut their speeds but could such an idea really work or are the council members who conceived of the idea the real dummies.

Some drivers have already complained that the plastic replicas are spooky, scary and reminiscent of the Autons in the Doctor Who TV series. With wild staring eyes and expressionless faces the dummies are to be found on roads surrounding a local primary school.

When I was learning about road safety traffic lights were designed purely for motorists. For pedestrians there was neither a button to push nor a  “little green man” to indicate that it was safe to cross. I still remember the confusion that the flashing yellow light caused for motorists when it was phased in. As pedestrians we just kept our eyes open and followed “the green cross code”. Looking back with the mindset of one of today’s road safety planners it is no doubt a wonder that we lived to tell the tale.

Today we have a residential speed limit of 20 mph, railings at places that are unsafe to cross and a plethora of other road safety measures. One would have thought that in conjunction with road safety education in schools children would be relatively safe.

If anything detracts from pedestrians’ safety today it is surely the abundance of “street furniture”. We have more road signs, utility junction boxes, CCTV camera posts, and other obstacles than ever before. Even our bus stops are super-sized; not that this stops ill-bread idiots standing right in the middle of the pavement so that those walking by need to step into the road to get by.

So whose crazy idea was it to add plastic dummies to the list of obstacles that pedestrians have to traverse? What do mothers with push chairs think about them I wonder, in a world where they already have to scrape by a multitude of objects to get anywhere. How about the elderly and partially sighted? It is easy to imagine some good potential comedy situations here but I will resist. Road safety is a serious matter after all.

That's spooky !

Besides the obvious hazard of placing more obstacles in the way of pedestrians might not these dummies actually cause drivers to be less attentive? Their spooky faces are a sight to see. In addition there is the added possibility that drivers may become de-sensitised to them and mistake real children for them who are standing still at the side of the road patiently waiting to cross.

Thankfully I have no children but if I was a parent the very first important lesson of life would be to drive home the fact that we are born once, we have one life and then we die.

Specifically when it comes to road safety I would teach them the simple code that I learned when I was young.

The Green Cross Code.

1. Find a safe place to cross where there are no parked cars and where you can clearly see oncoming traffic and just as importantly, a place where drivers are able to see you.
2. Keep looking left and right while waiting for a suitable time to cross and wait for a time when there are no cars approaching from either direction.
3. When it is safe to cross, do so but keep looking left and right all the time until you reach the other side.

I have no way of knowing exactly how many roads I’ve crossed in my lifetime of almost half a century but this system seems to have worked so far. I’ve never cut corners to catch a bus either. I’ve always remembered that it is better to wait for the next bus than loose the only life I have.

Children are not dummies and with the right education they don’t need plastic bollards in order to be safe on our roads.

See:
“The child bollards that are so lifelike they’re scaring motorists.”
(Daily Mail 16.08.09)

“The Green Cross Code with Kevin Keegan (1976)”
(Old Public Information Film at YouTube)

Filed under: News, Stupidity, Autons, Child Bollards, Doctor Who, Green Cross Code, Leicester City Council, Road Safety, Street Furniture