When does kinky porn become illegal?

When does kinky porn become illegal? (BBC News, Tuesday, 29 April 2008)

Real perversion is seeing one's own inclinations as the norm, and calling anything else a disease that needs to be rooted out. To Britain's eternal shame, homosexuality was not fully decriminalised until the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, and some draw the line as late as 2003 when Section 28 was repealed in England and Wales (in Scotland in 2000). The same sentiment that underlies homophobia is also the cause of misogyny, racism, religious fanaticism, and a few dozen other evils.

With queer-bashing being no longer socially acceptable, how do we accommodate the unappeasable desire of common folk to see 'abnormal' people suffer? For the bunch of perverts also known as the Labour Party, this has proven to be rather easy: think up new kinds of sexual crimes. They can't be blamed for lack of imagination.

"If no sexual offence is being committed it seems very odd indeed that there should be an offence for having an image of something which was not an offence," he said.

With that partly in mind, the government is tabling an amendment that would allow couples to keep pictures of themselves engaged in consensual acts - but not to distribute them.

How about two couples engaged in consensual acts together? Can the pictures be distributed among themselves as long as each of the four participants appears in the pictures? But then who is to operate the camera?

All this would be comical if the bill did not represent yet another excuse to put thousands of people in jail for victimless crimes.

the new act is designed to reflect the realities of the internet age

This cannot be said enough: You can free yourselves from some of the scourges inflicted on you by a totalitarian government, simply by encrypting your hard drives and any sensitive internet traffic. FreeOTFE and TrueCrypt are free.

Don't rely on NuLabour to protect what is left of your civil liberties.

Searches follow Muslim festival

Searches follow Muslim festival (BBC News, Tuesday, 22 April 2008)

The BBC is not known for its accurate reporting, especially where delicate issues are involved.

The posters, displayed during the annual "March for Mohammed" in Burton upon Trent on 23 March, apparently contained anti-US remarks, police said.

What on earth does that mean, "anti-US remarks"? If it is "Kill all Americans!", I might understand why houses were searched. If it is "I met this American the other day and I didn't like his shoes!", then it becomes a completely different story.

In the police state we live in, search warrants are issued for about any silly reason, such as taking pictures in a public place in a 'suspicious' way, or not having a TV license (irrespective of whether one has a TV). The sanctity of the home is at best an imaginary concept in British law. If houses in Burton upon Trent were raided because someone hinted at the irrefutable fact that George W. Bush is a dangerous lunatic, then I want to know so that I can flee the country before they come after me too.

When Muslims become Christians

When Muslims become Christians (BBC News, Monday, 21 April 2008)

The BBC could raise the average intelligence of its journalists by recruiting Miss South Carolina.

The introduction reads:

There's a widespread belief that the penalty for leaving Islam is death - hence, perhaps, the killing of a British teacher last week. But Shiraz Maher believes attitudes may be softening.

One would then expect evidence, however circumstantial, that apostasy is becoming more accepted in the Islamic world, and that prosecution of converts to say Christianity is less frequent than some time in the past. Regrettably, the text is one long string of non sequiturs. It is reported that some imams hold the Quran does not dictate that apostates should be punished, but it is not clear whether this was any different say 5, 10 or 100 years ago.

Shiraz Maher is guilty of two more fallacies. The first is that he equates a religion with the main text on which it is based. A religion is much more (and often much worse) than any text, by including various practices that have established themselves through many generations, sometimes as particular interpretations of the holy texts and sometimes based on independent sources altogether. The issue here is that Sharia is based on the Quran, Hadith, etc., and generally prescribes the death penalty for apostates.

The second fallacy is to expect anything good will come out of a more 'truthful' interpretation of the Quran (or Hadith, etc.) and a corresponding change in the attitudes of Muslims. How nice that the Quran does not dictate the death penalty for apostates per se. But at the same time Sura 9:5 is interpreted by some as a license to kill all unbelievers, which one may assume includes apostates. The alternative interpretation of that verse as referring to only one time and place is wishful thinking by apologists more than anything else. And let's not forget the punishments mentioned by the Quran and various Hadith for homosexuality, adultry, blasphemy, etc. As a frequent fornicator, I wouldn't really appreciate one hundred lashes if Sura 24:2 were put into practice as it was intended.

Yours truly,

A fornicating pig, ape, mule, or worse. (And a passionate blasphemer.)

Recommended reading: Islam for pigs, apes, mules and other beasts

There may be trouble ahead

There may be trouble ahead (BBC News, Friday, 18 April 2008)

What is the world coming to! The NHS is slashing funds for homoeoquacks, religious beliefs are subjected to critical investigation, and now even psychics aren't safe anymore. How's an honest swindler to make a living?

Spiritualists are delivering a mass petition to Downing Street and complaining that a genuine religion is being discriminated against.

I agree. This new law should not be restricted to any one religion.

Mosley 'orgy' injunction refused

Mosley 'orgy' injunction refused (BBC News, Wednesday, 9 April 2008)

Mr Justice Eady said an order would make "little practical difference".

Can News of the World now put child pornography on its website? I mean, there is already so much of that on the internet that it would make "little practical difference".

British privacy laws are shite. All individuals are entitled to privacy until some turd from the tabloid media or the 'respectable' media (if there's such a thing in Britain) gets his grubby little hands on details of anyone's sex life.

There is no reason why it should be so. In most civilised countries it isn't. Cf.:

French sites fined for linking to privacy-invading content (OUT-LAW News, 10/04/2008)

Six guilty of terrorism support

Six guilty of terrorism support (BBC News, Thursday, 17 April 2008)

Let me be clear about this, I intensely dislike these islamofascists and all they stand for. And yet, it is a sad day for free speech that some of them were convicted of nothing more than 'inciting terrorism overseas', or in other words, for remarking that the invasion of Iraq was not quite legitimate.

During World War II, the British actively supported the French Resistance. Especially the communist movements were involved in guerrilla warfare against the German forces, and after the war, resistance fighters were treated as heros, in France and in Britain alike. (For those who lack any historical awareness: yes, the French communist resistance did actually exist and is not just a fabrication of 'Allo 'Allo!.)

In a moral sense, there is no comparison between resistance movements in occupied Europe in World War II and the mixed bunch of maniacs who wreak havoc in Iraq in the name of some psychopathic child molester from the dark ages. Formally however, some of the insurgents could well claim to act out of the same motivations as the French Resistance, namely kicking out occupiers who have no business being there.

The men on trial in Kingston Crown Court were not insurgents but were sympathetic to insurgents, and that is against the law these days. What is next? Should people who are sympathetic to people who are sympathetic to insurgents be put in jail too? In that case, could this post get me in trouble? Somehow, I don't think so, as my skin is white, my name is British, and you won't find me anywhere near a mosque. So what's the problem?

Fighting for free speech in Turkey

Fighting for free speech in Turkey (BBC News, Saturday, 12 April 2008)

In 2006 alone, 1,700 people were tried under article 301 of the Turkish penal code ("insulting Turkishness").

Anyone who believes that proponents of all the Britishness nonsense have the interests of a free and humane society at heart is sorely mistaken:

Pupils 'to take allegiance oath' (BBC News, Tuesday, 11 March 2008)

Recommended reading:

Did you say 'Britishness?' (Turkish Daily News, Friday, March 14, 2008)

proportionality

Family's shock at council spying (BBC News, Friday, 11 April 2008)

In 2005, Tony Blair said:

Any such powers should only be undertaken with the greatest of hesitation and only in circumstances that demand it.

(Blair defends house arrest plans, BBC News, Wednesday, 2 February, 2005)

Such NuLabour rhetoric is far from original. The enabling act (Ermächtigungsgesetz), which was passed on 24 March 1933, granted Hitler full legislative powers. A day before, Hitler had said in the Krolloper:

Die Regierung wird von dieser Ermächtigung nur insoweit Gebrauch machen, als dies zur Durchführung der lebensnotwendigen Maßnahmen erforderlich ist. [...] Die Zahl der Fälle, in denen eine innere Notwendigkeit vorliegt, zu einem solchen Gesetz die Zuflucht zu nehmen, ist an sich eine begrenzte.

(The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures. [...] The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one.)

The RIP Act was presented to us as an instrument to fight paedophilia and terrorism, but it is now being used to monitor school applications for three-year-olds.

Are you afraid of losing your civil liberties? Then wake up, you no longer have any.

Addendum: Spy law 'used in dog fouling war' (BBC News, Sunday, 27 April 2008)

Blair urges bigger role for faith

Blair urges bigger role for faith (BBC News, Thursday, 3 April 2008)

An antitheist's task is easy these days.

paedophilia and intelligence

The brains of law makers and law enforcement agencies stop functioning as soon as paedophilia is involved. Examples are witnessed every day:

'I was falsely branded a paedophile' (BBC News, Thursday, 3 April 2008)

Be afraid, be very afraid, merely for living in Britain.

Sex offenders face website bans (BBC News, Friday, 4 April 2008)

Sex offenders' e-mail addresses are to be passed to social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo to prevent them contacting children.

One can get any number of free e-mail addresses by a few mouse clicks. Sex offenders don't know this of course.

Iraq Autonomous Region

Brown decision not to attend Beijing games opener 'not a boycott' (Guardian, Thursday April 10 2008)

By hinting at someone else's moral wrongs, one distracts attention from one's own. This was known to Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, and as it might be known to the British people as well, Brown was wise to go about it with care.